Beaver Area High School recently welcomed a new orchestra director, Ms. Caroline Poeggel.

Ms. Poeggel was born in Delaware and moved around a lot as a child. Her family eventually settled around Sewickely when she was in kindergarten, and she graduated Quaker Valley High School.

Ms. Poeggel then attended the Mary Pappert School of Music at Duquesne University, majoring in Music Education with a focus in Violin Performance.

While she is a fairly new teacher, she did teach for a year before coming to Beaver Area. She began her teaching career as a general music teacher at Franklin Elementary in North Allegheny.

Ms. Poeggel has always wanted to be a teacher of some kind, but she didn’t decide to be a music teacher until her high school orchestra teacher suggested it.

Ms. Poeggel’s favorite part of teaching is the students, as well as the variety her particular job has.

“I really like the students. Orchestra kids are very unique. I like being able to split my time between elementary school and the secondary building as well. It’s nice to be able to talk at a more technical level with the older kids, and to also share my love of music with the younger kids.”

Ms. Poeggel’s biggest inspiration was her middle school orchestra director.

“She was the nicest person I’ve ever met in my life. She was somehow the epitome of the perfect person who has her life together—who does fun things on the weekend and has time to do that. She was an amazing teacher and an amazing person.”

Ms. Poeggel wants students to have fun in orchestra, and to not sweat the small stuff.

“Everything’s not that serious. Playing the wrong note is not the end of the world, missing a few points on an assignment isn’t the end of the world. At the end of the day, you’re in school, you’re making progress, it doesn’t matter if things aren’t as perfect as you want them to be.”