Jeffrey Bettis, former AP United States History teacher at Kennesaw Mountain High School, transferred to NC last year, and began teaching on-level US history. Starting the 2017-2018 school year, Bettis replaced Gracia Elrick as AP World History teacher.

“In my 27 years of teaching, I have only taught 3 semesters of World History, the rest were all APUSH,” Bettis said.

Elrick helped Bettis out by giving him tips on how to manage the intense amount of content the course requires students to cover.

“She gave me mostly content based tips and resources to use. I was already familiar with how the historical thinking skills and exam format works, so really I had to go over the content through the summer,” Bettis said.

As coach of wrestling and assistant coach for the 9th grade football team, Bettis finds a way to relieve the stress of the daily school activities.

“I enjoy fishing, I go freshwater fishing in Lake Allatoona and have gone saltwater fishing in the Gulf of Mexico,” Bettis said.

Throughout Bettis’ schooling years, he never knew he wanted to pursue a career in education until studying in college. He found a passion for learning history and spreading that information to students. After graduating from Kennesaw State University in 1994, Bettis began teaching. He started at South Paulding Middle School in the same year, moving onto Paulding County High School in 1995, Hiram High School in 1999, and Kennesaw Mountain High School in 2000. While teaching at Kennesaw Mountain, Bettis took classes at Luther Rice University, earning a master’s degree in education.

“I don’t know why I chose education as a major. I do know that I am glad that I did.  There have been no regrets. I just enjoy learning about history,” Bettis said.

For this school year, though, Bettis plans to teach World History in an engaging and interesting way, and prepare his students for success on the AP World History exam. He plans to hold review sessions after school two days a week following the conclusion of spring break.