While the loss of NDA’s art teacher, Mrs. Melanie Bradshaw, has been a difficult change for the community, the school has already found a fitting replacement in Ms. Tina Harpold.

In her classes, Harpold challenges students to go beyond what they know in order to help them become more creative, skilled, and visually literate, critical thinkers.

“Being a good artist also means being able to creatively problem solve, engage with artwork, and articulate what you think and feel about it,” she said. “We include all of that and more in my classes.” 

This philosophy stems from 11 years of prior teaching experience. 

She grew up in Chicago and moved to Green Bay to attend UWGB to pursue her interests in art, graphic design, and dance. 

“I wasn’t exactly sure at the time how I could incorporate those interests into a viable future, but the university gave me the opportunity to get involved in all of them,” she said. 

The university was what introduced her to theater. 

“The people that lived on my floor were theater majors, so they would invite me to their shows,” she explained. “My roommate introduced me to tap dance (I’d never tapped before) and once the dance professor found out I had dance experience, she got me involved in the dance shows. That was my transition from an audience member to a performer.” 

This led to her being very busy—majoring in art, minoring in graphic design, as well as working as a theater performer.

Harpold was also student teaching at Green Bay East and Rock Ledge Elementary in Seymour, and both of these schools happened to be hiring art teachers when she graduated.

She thus started teaching art at Seymour at both elementary and high school levels. 

The young teacher was able to explore all of her interests with this job as she soon became an assistant coach for the dance team and began helping with the school’s high school musical. 

After four years at that school, the other high school art teacher retired allowing Harpold to take over the high school department full time. 

During her time teaching at Seymour, she also explored some more interests of hers—doing lighting and sound for musicals and starting her own photography business.

In 2018, she left her teaching job to spend more time on her photography business while continuing to work on tech events. 

Some of these tech events have included helping with NDA events such as last year’s Footloose musical, Tritonfest and school dances. 

After her four-year hiatus, she is now back in the classroom—this time at NDA.

Harpold is looking forward to getting to know her new students, saying, “I know from my experiences working on tech events with students previously that the people are great here, so I’m excited to get to know everyone more.” 

She is excited to see what students are able to create in her classroom and welcomes all of her students to hang out in the art room sometime.