The Community that Millie Built

Millie Pryles, Retired Faculty

Each classroom is a community of teachers and students, each with its own distinct personality. For more than three decades, Mille Pryles's classrooms reflected her enthusiasm for teaching and devotion to her students. The sense of belonging she created bound teacher and student together in mutual encouragement and support.

A class of 1965 Lovett School alumna, Millie applied to teaching jobs there and at Westminster, hoping to teach at her alma mater. Westminster had an opening, and Lovett did not, so she came to Westminster and never looked back. After 32 years of teaching and mentoring the youngest Wildcats, Millie retired in May.

Creating a sense of togetherness came naturally to Millie, who was an attentive and caring teacher to all her students. "Every year we have families that bring culture to the classroom, [who] are so great about sharing their cultures." Millie shared how she made a point to "pray for every single child". Her conscientious teaching approach made a lasting impression on one particular student, who was in Millie's class in second grade. "I just loved this little girl," Millie remembers. "She was always smiling." Years later, the student talked about Millie's impact on her life during a speech she gave at her graduation from Westminster. Like Millie, she chose teaching as her career-just one example of the lives Millie has touched.

Millie's love for her students was returned by the Westminster community when she needed it most. Her husband, Vic, was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1998, and it returned five years later. Colleagues and families rallied to her side as he underwent surgery and chemotherapy. "I can't say enough about how supportive this community is," Millie says.

Millie also felt the Westminster community's generosity in the professional development that enriched her teaching. "Westminster sent me on so many wonderful workshops," she says. A reading and writing workshop on Martha's Vineyard, a Northeastern University program where she met the author Judy Blume, and a four­week sabbatical exploring her Irish and Scottish heritage were all made possible by philanthropic gifts to the school.

Professional development puts "one more tool in your toolkit," Millie says. "Westminster is great in building your toolkit. It's because of the people in this school that go out into the community and get the people to say 'yes' that the faculty of given these great opportunities."

Support when her family needed it most. Professional development that made her a better teacher. The latest teaching tools to spark her students' eagerness to learn. Enthusiastic children to love on and pray for. Westminster has given Millie so much she feels compelled to give back.

"Westminster made me into the teacher that I became and provided me so many opportunities," says Millie, a Cornerstone Society member. "Why wouldn't I want to give back?" This circle of support-teacher to student, school to teacher, donors to The Westminster Fund and other priorities - builds a sense of community as meaningful as the feeling of belonging Millie Pryles created in her classroom for more than 30 years.