Joseph Ammirati was a stay-at-home dad looking to send his children to Catholic school when he started volunteering at the preschool at Angelus Academy in Springfield. He ended up as principal, and now teaches middle school and works as director of facilities. He has an especially close relationship with two of his coworkers — his daughter Kaitlin Coleman and his son-in-law, Matthew Coleman. They’re one of the many families in the Arlington diocese who have two or more family members working in Catholic schools.
Kevin Cyron started his career working in government and his wife, Nadya Cyron, worked in the corporate world. Today, both work at St. Luke School in McLean. Kevin teaches middle school social studies and religion, and Nadya is lead preschool teacher. “Doing what I’m doing now, I love it 100 times more than (my old job),” said Nadya. “I feel truly blessed because I feel like I’m laying the foundation for the youngest little children of St. Luke. (When) they come to us, they can’t handle a pencil, they can’t use scissors, they don’t know letters, most of them. I teach them those basics.”
“It’s a great opportunity to help kids learn,” said Kevin of his job. “It’s not just education with facts and figures, though that’s important, it’s also a critical moment of adolescence. It’s good to help them and guide them, not only in academic ways but in spiritual ways as well.”
Though the skills needed to teach tweens and toddlers differ vastly, the couple, who have a daughter in the fifth grade at Holy Spirit School in Annandale, find ways to support each other. “I always joke (that) whenever I’m having a bad day in middle school, I go down and see what my wife is doing in preschool, because there’s things that she’s doing that I do not have to worry about, and vice versa,” Kevin said. “But we drive to work together, we talk about our days, we break down different strategies and every once in a while, maybe there’s a strategy that she’s doing in her class that I can actually apply to mine.”
Joseph’s father was a principal and his siblings were teachers, so the Angelus teacher always had people to turn to for work advice. “It is always good to go to another teacher and when they’re in the family, it makes it that much easier,” he said. Though Joseph didn’t set out to be a teacher, his daughter Kaitlin decided in college to make art education her career. “I feel like it’s what God calls me to do,” she said.
Because Kaitlin, who teaches part-time at Angelus and St. Rita School in Alexandria, first shared a last name with her father and then with her husband, the students generally knew that she related to both men. But the connection between Joseph and Matthew wasn’t as clear.
“Joe only works four days and, on his day off, he takes care of our kids so that Kaitlin can teach,” said Matthew, who teaches fifth grade and middle school. “The first year after (our daughter) Grace was born, I swear there were kids who were new that year who just thought that that’s what Mr. A did on Friday, that his job was to take care of Mr. Coleman’s kids. At one point I explained that my daughter is actually his granddaughter and they were like ‘What?’ ”
Matthew’s students often ask if his children, Grace, 2, and Gianna, 9 months, can visit the classroom. It’s been a profound experience to start a family as a teacher, he said. “The kids were around when Mrs. Coleman and I were dating and then were at the wedding and then (they) didn’t go to the baptism because of COVID, but presumably would have,” he said. “They’re all familiar with their own families, but their own families mostly aren’t changing that much. To see two people that you know like teachers get married and start a family, I think it gave the kids who were around a really neat portrait of the birth of a vocation.”
And there might be more teachers to come from the family. When asked by her dad, Grace said she was going to be a teacher when she grows up.
“What are you going to teach the kids about?” Matthew asked her.
“Jesus,” she answered.
