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Teacher returns to Florida after 10 years in China classroom

Roger Marcellus taught English in Beijing for a decade

TAMPA, Fla. — Hillsborough County is the eighth-largest school district in the nation. New teachers are a must. Hundreds gathered this morning for orientation at Chamberlain High School in Tampa.

“I’m so excited. I feel like it’s finally hitting, especially with the trainings over the next two weeks,” said first-year teacher Genevieve Beaumier, who graduated from the University of Tampa in May. “It’s just the most rewarding career from what I’ve seen so far.”

Jake Gill will join the 14,000 teachers in the county this upcoming year as well. He moved from the San Francisco area to Tampa Bay two weeks ago.

“I haven’t even been the beach yet,” he said with a smile during a break in the day-long orientation.

Down the hall, wearing thick-rimmed glasses, Roger Marcellus is preparing for his first year in an American classroom.

“Last school year, I was teaching seventh grade in a public school in China. I had a class size of about 35 in each of my classes, so as far as I understand my class sizes here are going to be smaller. And I was also teaching English as a second language. All of my students were Chinese.”

Roger has family in Haines City and in The Villages. That was part of the reason he chose Tampa for his next teaching job. Now, 8,000 miles away from his last classroom, he embraces the chance to join a county with over 215,000 students.

“It’s a good county and they are prepared to have so many teachers come, and I think it’s exciting that there are a lot of new faces coming in,” he said.

Hillsborough County schools set its all-time graduation rate record of 85.8 percent.

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