{"id":1213,"date":"2025-11-18T07:32:03","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T15:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/2025\/11\/18\/staff-spotlight-mariah-butenschoen-is-helping-students-achieve-dreams\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T07:32:03","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T15:32:03","slug":"staff-spotlight-mariah-butenschoen-is-helping-students-achieve-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/2025\/11\/18\/staff-spotlight-mariah-butenschoen-is-helping-students-achieve-dreams\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Spotlight: Mariah Butenschoen is Helping Students Achieve Dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post is part of the Lynden Schools Staff Spotlight series<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lynden High School teacher Mariah Butenschoen plays many roles, but they all focus on one thing: helping students. And that\u2019s enough to keep her motivated and excited about the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Role<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For over a decade Butenschoen has taught in the English department at Lynden High School, but this year\u2019s workload has taken on a fresh mix of responsibility. She\u2019s teaching creative writing, advanced placement literature and composition, yearbook, leadership and for the first time is serving as the ASB\/activities director. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout a week she can be busy planning, instructing, assessing student writing, preparing students for an AP exam, directing her yearbook \u201cstaff\u201d as they meet deadlines, planning ASB activities and events, helping students run ASB officer meetings and managing the ASB budget. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s all worth it. \u201cI love the students,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s the coolest job in the world to help young people learn the skills they need to achieve their dreams. That sounds cheesy, but it\u2019s really true. I have hope for the future of mankind because I work with amazing young people. It keeps me from being cynical and jaded.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting to Know Mariah<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the busyness of her job, Butenschoen keeps working when she gets home. Along with her husband, they own and operate two businesses: Breckenridge Blueberries and Probably Shouldn\u2019t Distillery. The work keeps her active but also embedded in the east county community. The couple also has two sons, both attending Nooksack Valley High School. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fun to have kids the same ages as my students, and it\u2019s been fun to see friendships established between my kids and my students,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a good place to be.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is part of the Lynden Schools Staff Spotlight series Lynden High School teacher Mariah Butenschoen plays many roles, but they all focus on one thing: helping students. And … Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":1214,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Lynden Middle School","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}