Warren was born and raised in New York but has lived in Houston for more than twenty years. She is an eleventh-grade U.S. history teacher at Hastings High School, in the Alief Independent School District, which serves one of the state’s most ethnically diverse student populations. More than sixty languages and dialects are spoken by the area’s children.
I was in the corporate world for fifteen years before I made the switch to teaching. I worked in the Texas Medical Center doing professional billing and consulting. My career was going really well; I made good money and all that. But at about year ten, I was feeling that there had to be something more rewarding. So I went back to school, and after getting my teaching certification, I completed a master’s in education. Some people thought I was crazy to work longer hours—and with teenagers!