For the past 19 years, Rachael Torchia has been a part of the Northwest Academy community. Currently, she is the Head of Middle and High School, but will not be returning next year.
Torchia will instead be pursuing a Masters Degree at Lewis and Clark College in family counseling, in hopes to work with middle and high school students either through her own private practice or an organization that works with helping young people.
“My kids are young and it’ll be nice to have a little bit of flexibility to pick them up from school and spend a little bit more time with them,” says Torchia. “And so it feels like a nice moment to do this.”
Torchia joined Northwest Academy as a photography teacher when she was 26 years old in 2006, and although she was only planning on staying for a few years, she has been working at the school ever since.
“I was just going to do it for a couple of years and then go to graduate school,” says Torchia. “And then I fell in love with the school, and then I kind of grew up with the school. The school gave me so many opportunities to grow and build skills and be challenged and try different things, and my life is just so much more interesting being part of this community that I never left.”
But Torchia thinks that in order to grow, she eventually had to leave the school. This year felt like the perfect opportunity for her to finally complete her schooling.
“I love the school so much that it was really hard to imagine leaving,” says Torchia. “But now I have a fifth grader who will be a sixth grader here in just a year, and so it feels like kind of a nice moment because I get to come back and be a parent in the community.”
Just because Torchia is leaving Northwest Academy in an administrative sense, she still sees the school as a special place where creative learning is fostered.
“I think this one has a really special community,” says Torchia. “ I think that the relationships that kids have with each other and with their teachers is unique, uniquely supportive and warm and friendly, and I think that the creativity here has made my life more interesting.”
When Torchia joined the school, she taught photography, was a “lunchtime wrangler” and learning lab teacher for the first 10 years. She also worked as Middle School Coordinator, doing various administrative tasks. She then bounced around to various other positions such as middle and high school activities coordinator. From there she started a more permanent position in school administration.
“I was a high school activities person when the retreat started, so I started the retreats,” said Torchia. “And then the school grew and needed someone who was really just a full time administrator at the middle school. And so then I moved into that role in 2016.”
Along with her colleagues, Torchia has enjoyed working with students, and she loves hearing about what they are reading and watching and thinking about.
“I’ve always worked in schools or with young people,” says Torchia. “I really enjoy interacting with people between the ages of 10 and 19. I really enjoy being around folks at that time of life.”
Cris Gilman, Director of Development, has worked with Torchia throughout her time at Northwest Academy, and says part of the reason she ended up working at the school was due to her.
“[Torchia] gives care to everything that she does,” says Gilman. “She is compassionate and has a deep love of the community and the school. She is dedicated and a really amazing person.”
Julia Cain, Director of College Counseling, feels very close to Torchia and is deeply sad to see her go, but excited to see what she accomplishes next.
“When I think of Rachael, I think of a camera in her hand,” says Cain. “I’ve always seen her as mother nature. She is a beautiful artist. We will miss her a lot.”
Reporting by Augusta Gindling and Elliot Strom
