Yasmina Summer Query, 36, is the new Eugene Ware Elementary School Principal, replacing Stephanie Witt, who resigned.
Query has taught five years in fourth grade at Eugene Ware Elementary and prior to that nine years at Truman Elementary School in Nevada, MO.
She earned a Bachelors’s in Elementary Education and a Masters’s in Educational Leadership.
Her hometown is Fort Scott.
She is married to Joshua Query owner of JDQ Construction, and who also with his father, Ronald Query, owns a nutritional store in Kansas City, called the Ultimate Sports Nutrition.
They have two boys, Mason,9 years old and will be in 4th grade, and Myron, 6 years old and who will be in 1st grade.
Outside of school, she loves to read and bake.
And “I volunteer with the children’s ministry at the Fort Scott Church of the Nazarene. I help with Sunday School, and I am always a teacher for VBS.”
How did you become an educator?
“I knew in elementary school that I wanted to be a teacher. I attended Eugene Ware as a child and graduated from Fort Scott High School. My experience in school was such a positive one, that I knew I wanted to work with kids and create that positive school experience for them as well.”
Is there someone who inspired you?
“I don’t think I could bring it down to just one person. I had amazing teachers growing up. There wasn’t a building or grade level that I didn’t connect to at least one teacher. As an educator, I have worked for dedicated and supportive administers. I have also learned under such experienced and loving teachers. Each person who invested in me brought me to this moment, and my life is forever changed by them.”
What is the best part of teaching?
“The thing I love most about being a teacher is watching the successes of my students. My goal every year is that all of my students learn to believe in themselves. There isn’t a child out there who isn’t capable of greatness, and I want every student who has been in my class to know that they can do anything.”
What are the greatest challenges in teaching for you?
“The greatest challenges are when you feel like you haven’t done enough for your kids. Anyone who has been a teacher has had a tough kid. You want so much to help them fix everything in the nine months you have them, but sometimes you don’t see the work you have put in until years later. Teaching is full of joys but also heartaches because you care so much about your students.”
She starts her new position on July 19.
In his spare time, he likes to fish and play music.
” My family plays in a country/rock band based out of Iola,” he said. “We also like to travel!”
