Davis High Teacher Brings a World of Experience to His Classes

During the school year, Ken Capp’s math classroom at Yakima’s Davis High School has the aroma of toast and cup of noodles, provided free of charge. (His tests and assignments are free of charge, too, as he constantly reminds his students.)

“You can’t do math on an empty stomach,” he will point out.

It’s a loving gesture, appreciated by the hordes of hungry 16-year-olds ready to consume anything with refined carbs. A teacher who recognizes the difficulties of being an active student is a real gem, and his students recognize it.

...Capp returned to school, this time at Central Washington University. While attending CWU, Ken Cappone of his professors suggested that Capp needed to consider becoming a teacher.

“I thought that was the dumbest thing,” Capp said. “But I tried it for a semester, teaching in a middle school, and I absolutely loved it.”

In the spring of 1985, Capp received his teaching certificate. He was immediately hired as a long-term substitute teacher at Davis High School in 1986.

“There was something about Davis I really loved, something about the energy,” he recalls.

Capp was offered a full-time job the following school year, and has been working at Davis ever since, providing catchy sayings and math immersion to students for now more than 30 years.

Or, in describing his teaching career with one of his own classroom sayings: “Subtraction action for maximum math satisfaction.”

Read the entire article at the Yakima Herald-Republic.