5:30 a.m. An alarm goes off in Milford. Waking up to shut it off is Jessie Karner, a teacher, coach and alumni at Hopkinton High School. With the help of meows from her cat, Bruin, Karner gets out of bed and prepares for her day at school just twenty minutes away from her home.
7:30 a.m. Karner walks into HHS through the door closest to her classroom, room A219. She carries two to three bags, depending on whether or not it is a game day, and wears a smile on her face. An assistant coach for boys wrestling and girls varsity softball, as well as the head coach for J.V. girls volleyball, Karner enters HHS prepared for a day ranging anything from ten to fourteen hours.
“During wrestling season, practice starts at 3:30, so I try to get a workout in before and then go to practice,” Karner explained. “Doesn’t always work out, but I try.”
“Softball season, we’re often right after school, so I’ll go to practice and then grab some kind of workout after. Volleyball, it’s a little more all over the place, so it’s always just figuring out what that schedule is each day.”
Once in her classroom, Karner puts her bags down behind her desk, hangs up her coat, and sits down to begin her work for the day. Working as a directed study teacher, she never knows what each day will bring, but for her, that’s part of the fun.
“A lot of teachers would tell you, ‘oh, I teach the same lesson a couple of different times to a couple of different classes’,” Karner said. “But that’s not my day.”
“I might be working on algebra two in my second period of the day and physics in the third. It’s always about what the students around me need.”
7:55 a.m. The second bell of the morning rings, signaling the playing of the national anthem, as well as the entrance of students into Karner’s classroom.
After the national anthem, Karner sits down at her desk. To her right is a stack of worksheets, quizzes, and tests that she will give to her students throughout the day, and in front of that stack are three fidgets.
As she looks at the fidgets, she recalls her eighteen-year-old self and all that she balanced in high school.
“I played softball all four years, volleyball for two, was the stage manager for theater the other two and managed the wrestling team my junior and senior year,” Karner reminisced.
“The world has changed quite a bit since I was in high school. We couldn’t all communicate all the time, so at school we were much more connected.”
9:03 a.m. Karner’s first students of the day leave her classroom and a new group files in. As the four minutes of passing time go by, Karner prepares for second period, often being interrupted by students yelling “Hi Ms. Karner” to her from the hall.
Once students are settled into second period, Karner walks around her classroom to see who she can help, or who might just need someone to talk to. While doing this, she often has conversations much more intense than what adjective would be best to put in a theme for an essay.
“In 2012, after a very long and hard battle with cancer, my mom passed away, and that has been really challenging,” Karner said. “I’m very blessed to have had a very supportive mother, and I think sometimes it’s very hard to imagine she’d be as proud as I want her to be, even though I know she would be.”
Having gone through such an intense loss just after her high school years, Karner knows that her students need to be treated as human beings before anything else, and makes a constant effort to do so.
“Growing up, you’re always facing something new every day. I think a lot of times we plan for things that don’t go the way that we expect them to, and you have to learn how to adapt and change. You have to roll with the punches,” she explained.
10:15 a.m. The bell rings again, signaling the end of yet another class. During this passing time, Karner goes to speak to a teacher to clarify directions they gave to one of her students on an assignment. While she goes on this short walk, she passes another ten to fifteen different students that call out hello to her.
When she walks back into her classroom, she sees the shelves to the left of her desk, specifically leading her eyes to a picture frame and a book. The picture frame on the top shelf holds a score card of a game from her junior year, and the book tucked in between many others holds the memories of her softball career.
The score card was given to her by her head coach, Coach Steve Simoes, from their year in 2007.
“Coach Simoes was a role model for me. He was someone I looked up to a lot,” Karner said.
“She was a kid that I coached that I always referred to as ‘coach free’,” Coach Simoes explained.
“Meaning someone whose attitude and effort would always be the same whether or not I was there.”
The influence that Coach Simoes had on Karner becomes even more apparent when Coach Simoes explained his best piece of advice for a coach, as well.
“Remember it’s not about your wins and losses,” Simoes said. “It’s about personal growth.”
“There’s more important things going on in your players’ lives than those two hours they’re on the field with you. That should be an oasis for them.”
11:27 a.m. The third period of the day ends, and the longest period of the day, lunch period, begins. During lunch period, students come to visit Karner and talk to her about their classes, sports and days.
Even though this is only her fourth year at HHS, the connections she has made with students is enormous.
“I think that’s what most of life is. It’s making connections with the people around you,” Karner said.
Junior softball player, Caroline Ozmun, is one of the students that stops by.
“I’ve visited Coach Karner a lot throughout my time in high school. She is a big support system for me,” Ozmun said.
“Talking to her feels like a reset after a stressful day, and it really helps me a lot.”
1:17 p.m. The final period of the day begins. Even though Karner loves what she does, since she works with people, there are always difficult moments.
“We have to zoom out and look at people as humans first and figure out what might be bothering us,” Karner explained.
“We identify as teachers or as basketball players, softball players, theater kids, or as students, but in reality, we’re all just human beings.”
2:25 p.m. The school day ends, and even though her title might switch from Ms. Karner to Coach Karner, Jessie Karner stays the same.
“If I make someone’s day better, then that’s a win,” Karner said.
“Those are the moments that I come back to that make everything I do worth it, even if things are hard.”