Anika Buster-Singleton 2007
Anika Buster-Singleton is passionate about teaching. As an elementary student at Cora Kelly Magnet School, she went home every day to play school. Her sixth grade teacher, Ms. Lucretia Jackson, allowed Anika to tutor ESL students after she finished her own assignments, thereby giving Anika her first teaching job.
At T.C. Williams, Anika joined the Future Educators of America Club and found joy in tutoring at-risk students at MacArthur Elementary School twice a week. When she was seventeen, Anika wrote, “Children need to know learning is fun and they can succeed at anything they put their minds to accomplish!”
Anika received the Future Educators scholarship from the Scholarship Fund of Alexandria and enrolled at Old Dominion University where she earned a B.S. in Interdisciplinary Studies in 1997 and a M.S. in Education in 1999. She knew that her parents would support her education, but the scholarship she received gave her added confidence. “Alexandria will never know how good I felt each day while walking across campus knowing that someone at home believed in me.”
Anika Buster-Singleton returned to Alexandria and is currently a sixth grade Language Arts Teacher at George Washington Middle School. In 2006, she received the Alexandria Education Partnership Excellence in Education Award and was recognized for placing a strong emphasis on developing reading abilities, honing writing skills and promoting a strong work ethic for her students.
As Anika and her husband look forward to the birth of their first child, she reflects, “I am constantly reminded of the impact that family, educators, and the community have on children. I am who I am today because of what so many people have given to me. How could I not invest in children after so many people have invested in me?”
T.C. Williams Class of 1993
B.S., Interdisciplinary Studies, Old Dominion University, 1998
M.S., Education, Old Dominion University, 1999
