You may know Middle and Upper School computer science teacher Toni Dunlap as an inspiring, encouraging, and innovative individual. However, after five great years of working at PDS, Ms. Dunlap will not be returning for the 2024-2025 school year to pursue special projects and personal ventures.
Ms. Dunlap shared that along with teaching computer science, she also served as the MS Service Learning Representative, Advisor for the MS Black Student Union, and Assistant Coach for the MS Girls’ Basketball team. She added, “I love playing tennis; I also love scriptwriting and making videos. I have also become really interested in website design over the years.”
When asked what her favorite PDS memory is, she reflected, “I have so many fun memories of just spending time with students and teachers in the hallway, making small conversations.” She has enjoyed her time being a US teacher especially because many of her current US students, she used to teach in MS and has loved watching them grow up and achieve wonderful things.
“I will definitely miss the people—the community,” Ms. Dunlap remarked. She joked about how she would miss the easy travel to and from work because she could literally just walk to PDS.
“I am looking forward to new adventures, trying new things, and working on special projects, excited for the unknown” Ms. Dunlap revealed. Sophomore Amber Pancholi, who took Applications of Programming, recalled, “My favorite experience with Ms. Dunlap was the Hour of Code Day when we were presenting our App Lab projects. That whole process was very interesting.” She added that she enjoyed learning about hardware and software to create a project.
Freshman Jiayi Li, a previous Intro to Computer Science student, commented, “My favorite memory with Ms. Dunlap was the pizza app project because anyone was able to create their own pizza delivery app on code.org.” She expressed how fun of an experience it was as a beginner coder.
Throughout my personal experience with Ms. Dunlap, there have been many notable moments. However, my favorite has to be the thoughtfully arranged field trip to the Google Headquarters in New York. It was a once-in-a-lifetime, unforgettable experience that I appreciate a lot. Overall, Ms. Dunlap created memorable experiences with her students through her fun activities, individual conversations, and creative teaching style.
Thank you, Ms. Dunlap, for all you have accomplished for both the students and teachers at PDS; you will be greatly missed.
