October, 2025
By Julio Alameda and Agustin Hernandez, Staff Reporters
New English teacher Catie Leon grew up in Austin, Texas and has returned to teach AP Literature to KAC 11th-graders.
Leon graduated from Scripps College, in California, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Ms. Leon says she was always the type of person to help others and also loved the topic of English which drove her to become a teacher.
Leon first began teaching in Tucson, Arizona, where she resided for 5 years. After teaching Literacy, she taught history to high school students, which she didn’t enjoy as much as English. She returned to Austin, and now that she has the chance to teach English she strives and motivates herself to become the best teacher she can possibly be.
Why is she a teacher?
As a kid, Ms. Leon says she struggled learning certain things in middle school and didn’t really have anyone to rely on to help her. She had trouble focusing or fully comprehending certain concepts which led her to fall behind on some occasions. This, accompanied by the fact that she was always an empathetic and nice person at heart, eventually drove her to choose a career path regarding helping others that might struggle like she did.
Teaching was the perfect fit, allowing her to help and support others in ways that she never experienced when she was a kid.
As a teacher at KIPP, she has noticed that some students don’t ask for help when they need it. That inspires her to reach out to them because, she says, she understands those students on a personal level. The fact she struggled learning at a young age without much help, drives a sort of understanding within her and her students, which drives her to be the best educator she can possibly be.
Her Favorite Things
As someone who loves English, Leon enjoys creative writing, meaning she writes her own poetry or, more typically, fiction. An outdoorsy person, she got into hiking when she lived in Tucson, Arizona. While living there, she would often hike mountains or trails with others around her area, which she loved doing. To go along with these outdoor activities, she was also into photography, taking pictures of the scenic areas she hiked. But Leon says the most important value to her is her family. She has always been really close to them, and says she always has had their support when she needed it.
The Cardinal Post 