As the 2024-2025 school year comes to a close, we Wyverns also bid farewell to a faculty member who has touched the lives and hearts of students and faculty in the Middle School, science teacher Sharon Migdal. Ms. Migdal, or “Ms. Miggy” as students like to call her, has been at Kingswood Oxford since 2021, teaching eighth-grade science with her first set of students being the Class of 2026.
When asked why she chose to accept the position at KO specifically, she spoke to the fact that when something is meant to be, it’ll be. Ms. Miggy had been living in West Hartford for a while with the intention of teaching science. After driving by KO so many times, curious about what it was about the school that kept catching her eye and checking job boards every day, a position eventually opened up. “I met Ms. Scig and Ms. Bailey, and they were so cool, and I thought to myself, ‘Ok, I could see myself here,’” Ms. Miggy said. “Then I met you all, and I knew I wanted to stay.” Ms. Miggy is no stranger to fate, and accepting the position at KO turned out to be the foundation for lifelong friendships and close-knit relationships with students.
For Ms. Miggy, her KO experience was transformative thanks to the bond she had with her students. She feels she’s learned a lot about herself these past four years, and the impact her students have left on her is crucial. “When I told the kids I was leaving, I told them, ‘I don’t think you all realize how much you contribute to our lives as teachers,” Ms. Miggy said. “I spend more time with them than I do with my family. There’s people here who came in and they were strangers to me, and now I’m leaving, and they’re family to me.”
Outside of the classroom, Ms. Miggy also served as an Upper Prep advisor and a coach for both volleyball and basketball, allowing her to be a part of students’ lives in a different way.
Post KO, Ms. Miggy is looking forward to taking a break from teaching and moving closer to her family in New York City. Though Ms. Miggy may not continue to be a teacher, the impact education has had on her life is not lost on her. “I’ve always been really passionate about education,” she reflected. “I think that it’s like the most important tool that you can have if you want to change the world. I think the more we can empower other teachers to do good work in their classrooms, the better outcomes we can have for kids. I know I’m doing that in my classroom. I know people here are doing that in their classrooms, but I want to see it from a different perspective, and I think tackling that problem requires you to see it from all those different angles.”
As her time on the KO campus comes to an end, the impact she’s made on students won’t be forgotten, and she leaves her mark on KO with a few pieces of advice. First, she encourages students to believe in themselves. “You can’t do anything if you don’t believe in yourself first, and I think in middle school and high school, there’s a lot of external validation people look for,” she said.
Second, she believes that you must do the work even when the results are delayed, as she’s learned throughout her adult years that you can’t have instant gratification for everything you do.
Lastly, she stresses the importance of kindness. “Just be kind to people,” Ms. Miggy said. “It doesn’t cost you a thing to be nice to somebody, but your unkindness can cost somebody everything. I hope that people continue to be conscious of the things that they say, the things that they do, and that they know they have an impact in the world.”
Thank you, Ms. Miggy, for four years of your unwavering support and kindness as well as the impact on not only students, but the KO community as a whole. We will miss you dearly and wish you success in your future endeavors!
