From Student to Faculty: WKHS Alumni

As seniors start to announce their commitment to colleges for sports and others are looking at colleges, many students are learning more about their options once they graduate. Two staff members, Mr. Peterson and Miss Karlock, graduated from Worthington Kilbourne High School and then were hired here. They share their story after high-school and college and how they ended up back at Kilbourne.

Mr. Peterson, pictured at left, graduated from WKHS in 2004. He then went to Otterbein because his mother was a professor there and gave him 75% off his tuition. He chose to go to college because his mother had been the first in her family to attend, and no one on his father’s side had yet. Mr Peterson said “it had been embedded in my mind. From a family standpoint, I didn’t have an option. I was going to college.” Mr. Peterson was originally a business major, then changed education, and eventually graduated from Otterbein with a degree in Spanish. He then worked for the Ohio Optometric Association, but “right around 25, I realized ah! Teaching is what I really want to do.” Mr. Peterson went back to school at Ashland University for education in the evenings while he was a substitute teacher. Looking back, he says, “If I would’ve taken a gap year, there’s a really good chance that I might have figured out that I wanted to pursue education the first time around.” Once he got his teaching license, Mr. Peterson taught at Westland High School for two years, Olentangy Orange Middle school for two years, Olentangy High School for two years, and then wanted to be an administrator. He became the assistant principal at Olentangy Liberty High School, and then came back to Kilbourne. This is now his fifth year back at Kilbourne. When asked about working with his former teachers, he said, “There was a really big sense of honor in being able to work side by side with people I had looked up to.” Mr. Peterson would advise students today “to think about what type of interactions they really like as far as work goes. Do you like helping people? Do you like leading people? Build a skillset and a repertoire in things that are transferable from job to job.”

Miss Karlock is pictured below in her current

classroom, then on the field hockey team

in high school, then in the classroom she did

her student teaching in.

Miss Karlock graduated WKHS in 2019. She thought about going to Butler, her top choice, Indiana, Xavier, and Ohio State. In regards to Ohio State, she said, “I got in, but it was just a little too close for me.” Miss. Karlock decided on Miami University because it made sense financially, as well as saying “I’m in school mode, I need to stay in school mode.” She then graduated from Miami University in 2023 with a degree in education, but she originally was a biology major with a business minor and thought she wanted to go into hospital administration. During her junior year, she participated in field experiences where they shadow teachers, and then senior year you take a whole semester off to student- teach. While student teaching, Miss Karlock applied to Worthington Schools, saying, “Worthington posts their jobs really early, so I applied to Worthington in the fall of my senior year, whereas most schools post in the winter.” She acknowledges the awkwardness of addressing your teachers by their first name. “It still doesn’t sit right with me!” she says. This is her first year at Kilbourne, and her first year out of college. “I left and then I came right back!”