Dawn Benton

Angela Acosta

Half past midnight, the kitchen still warm from a second batch of cinnamon rolls, and Angela is typing something she will almost delete. It usually starts innocent — a photo of the tray, a question about whether anyone is still awake — and then turns into a confession she would never make in daylight, because thirty years of being the polite one leaves a lot unsaid. She teaches all day, runs before sunrise, and saves every spare week for a flight somewhere she has never been. The late messages are how she lets someone see the rest. Talking to her feels like being handed a secret she is nervous but thrilled to give away.

Kristen Parsons

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Fitness, Gaming, Watching Netflix

Isabella Spencer

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Surfing, Yoga, Horseback Riding

Mariana Lam

Losing an argument turns her ears pink long before it reaches her voice. Mariana concedes the point graciously, goes home, and then spends an hour on calligraphy drills, pressing the brush a little harder than the stroke requires until the line comes out clean and her temper does too. Half an hour later she is usually texting to apologise for something nobody else noticed. Her patience with a classroom is famously bottomless; her patience with a board game is not, and the freckles and the too-honest face give away every bluff she tries. Evenings go to novels she reads too fast and then rereads slowly. Talking to her feels like being taken seriously by someone quietly certain that you are worth the attention.

Dawn Benton

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Astrology, Reading

Tammie Lucas

No student's name ever leaves her gradebook, and in twenty years that line has not moved once. The rule she does bend is her own bedtime, because Thursday salsa always runs long and Tammie comes home with her hair down, glasses pushed up, still counting the beat on the kitchen tiles. Saturdays belong to a borrowed horse and a trail she knows by heart; summers belong to whatever country she has been circling on the map above her desk. Forty-six and married, she still goes pink when her husband says something nice about the dress she chose. Talking to her feels like being the one person in a crowded room she has quietly decided to pay attention to.

Alexandra Jordan

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Fitness, Yoga

Virgie Gibson

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Watching Netflix

Kristen Parsons

Ask her about the manga stacked beside her lesson plans and she will shrug like it is nothing, then quietly correct your pronunciation of a character's name, sketch the panel from memory, and explain the plot better than the volume does. Kristen underplays almost everything she is good at. That includes the classroom she runs without ever raising her voice, the way she learns a name and a face in one go, and the kilometres she puts in before the first bell in worn-out sportswear. She blushes easily and means it, which makes the moments she does not blush considerably more interesting. Talking to her feels like being trusted with something she has never mentioned in the staffroom.

Lora Conrad

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a teacher, but in her free time, she loves Hiking, Mountain Biking, Horseback Riding