As a college freshman, Alecia Leeper would’ve never imagined a nine-year career in K-12 education that has spanned from a middle school Spanish classroom to the assistant principal’s office.
Leeper was born and raised in Freeport, but said that a lot has changed since she roamed the halls of FHS as a student.
“As industries left, though, there was less to do for the students,” said Leeper. “So like, the Freeport that you guys experience, isn’t the one that I had.”
During her high school career, she did band, and throughout school she learned how to play 12 instruments. She prefers the saxophone, but she says that if she was in a bad mood she liked to play on the drum set.
Also while Leeper was in high school, she participated in many extracurricular activities. Those being: basketball, tennis, track, and speech team. She even got a full scholarship through doing track.
“Track is how I got to college, they gave me a full-ride, between academics and athletics,” Leeper says.
She adds that she has the long jump, triple jump, and four-by-one record; she also went to a D1 track and field school, competing for 4 1/2 years there.
After highschool though, Leeper gained many degrees, after being a bit indecisive on her career path.
“So, I have two bachelors degrees,” she states, “and now I also have two masters degrees as well.”
She went to school with a major in biological sciences and Spanish, before quickly finishing the degrees as her scholarships were starting to run out. She then worked at MetLife in business for 8 years.
Originally, though, she wanted to be a doctor, but she changed her mind soon after getting into med school.
“I realized I didn’t want to just fix sick people, I wanted to prevent people from being sick,” she says.
This led to her getting a long-term sub position at FHS, and the rest is history.
Throughout her whole life, her father has always been supportive and helpful.
“He’s my number one support system, so like, to me, I wanna make him proud, and that’s part of my motivation,” Leeper states.
Leeper says she doesn’t plan on staying at FHS until she retires, since she’d have to wait 30 years. She also says that in the future she’d like to write a book, make some changes, and move up a little bit.