With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, it’s clear that love is in the air, especially for Lightridge’s many teacher couples.
Lightridge has at least ten married teacher couples, which principal Ryan Hitchman fully supports.
“It builds a much more cohesive and welcoming environment, where everyone feels welcome in the building,” Hitchman said. Aside from the comforting atmosphere that it creates, Hitchman added that he believes it assists with recruiting teachers; if someone is happy at Lightridge, and they communicate that through their spouse or friends, more teachers are eager to work at Lightridge.
English teacher Stephanie Cichoski and her husband, Christopher Wainwright, began teaching at Lightridge four years ago, and Cichoski concurred with HItchman’s assessment.
“I came because I have friends that work here,” said Cichoski. “They were just talking about how great Lightridge is. I kinda didn’t believe them, and now that I work here I do believe them!”
Since Cichoski has arrived, she has loved both her experience at Lightridge in general and the experience of working with her husband.
“I love it. Sometimes people get worried because they’re like, ‘oh don’t you get tired of seeing each other?’ First of all, I don’t just love my husband, I also like him as a person,” Cichoski said. “If I’m actually having a bad day I can go to him and I know where he is. And then sometimes I forget that he works here, so when I see him in the hallways it’s a nice surprise!”
“I like just about everything about teaching at the same school,” said Wainwright, who is a history teacher. He enjoys not only the extra time that they can spend together during work and riding to and from the school, but also the mutual understanding they have about their place of work.
For Valentine’s day, the two are taking a break from work by going to see comedian Trevor Noah in Washington DC, and going out to dinner.
Gregory and Meagen Zawistowski are another married couple. Gregory Zawistowski is a history teacher who began working at Lightridge the first year it opened. Meagen Zawstowski is a counselor and joined him the year after.
The Zawistowskis have actually worked together before.
“That’s how we met,” Meagen Zawistowski explained. “We worked at a wilderness school called the Discovery School of Virginia.”
The Discovery School is a boarding school in the woods for students who require rehabilitation. After working at that school, the pair came to Lightridge for a change of pace in helping open a brand new school. The Zawistowskis typically do something spontaneous for Valentine’s Day, but usually look forward to a nice dinner together.
Another couple at Lightridge is history teacher and soccer coach Dominic Rutan and chorus teacher Helai Rutan.
“Getting to work with your wife is pretty cool,” Dominic Rutan said. “One thing that I absolutely love is that we both get to support each other and see each other excel professionally. She just went to VMEA this past November, which is the equivalent of going to the state championship game for sports. Her chamber program got to go and it was amazing — it was a massive standing ovation, and people were crying. Getting to see her excel in what she’s doing is great.”
Rutan added that his wife supports him just as much.
“Last year she was really supportive when I was starting with the girls’ soccer program,” he said. “I’d say it’s really cool that we get to see each other excel and how committed we both are to our programs, because we also see how hard we’re both working at home too.”
“I love that we have similar students and we can talk about our stories about the kids,” Helai Rutan added, explaining that her favorite part is being able to watch their students grow through all four years of high school. The Rutans have a longstanding tradition of having Chipotle on Valentine’s Day, which they will be indulging in again this year.
While the couples were eager to sing praises about their spouses, none had anything to say when asked what they disliked about working with their partner.
“There is nothing that I don’t like — there is only a benefit to working with your spouse at this school,” said Cichoski. “I think we get twice the amount of gossip as other people because we’re in different departments.”
