By: Jenna Lewis-Keddy and Lauren Carlo

 Lauren Elizabeth DeBoer, better known to the students at Westborough High School as Mrs. DeBoer, is a woman who loves the color purple and is a chocolate fanatic living her dream. Mrs. DeBoer was born in Rehoboth, Massachusetts and grew up with her older brother and parents. She attended Dighton Rehoboth Regional High School, where she excelled in softball and field hockey. Following her love for softball, she was the softball coach at WHS for about five to six years. However, in addition to all of these achievements, Mrs. DeBoer is also a national champion.

Most students at WHS don’t know that Mrs. DeBoer was a dancer, and even more don’t know that she and her dance team won a national championship. They went from winning their age division, to winning the overall competition, to winning the National Competition itself. Although Mrs. DeBoer was considered to be the young girl version of the “King of Pop”, Michael Jackson, she decided to end her dancing career before starting high school.

Since she was young, Mrs. DeBoer dreamed of becoming a math teacher. Math was always easy and enjoyable for her which is why she fell in love with it. As a child, she always played school with her friends and acted as the role of the math teacher. Mrs.DeBoer says, “I used to make up tests and quizzes for my friends” and “I used to correct them and put stickers on them.” Her mother was a math teacher which influenced her greatly. Mrs. DeBoer says her mother still is her biggest inspiration and hero because of how easy she is to talk to and her honesty. “She always had fair and appropriate expectations and consequences,” Mrs. DeBoer explains.

Mrs. DeBoer attended Fairfield University in Connecticut for her undergraduate degree where she minored in education and majored in math. After her four years at Fairfield, she decided to go to Harvard for graduate school where she earned her masters in math for teaching.

After she graduated, Mrs. DeBoer moved to Boston where she then began applying for a teaching position within a 45 minute drive; Westborough was her farthest choice and ended up becoming the school she would teach at. Mrs. DeBoer has been teaching here for 12 years. For five out of those 12 years, she lived in Boston, but then moved closer, and now lives in Mendon, MA.

During Mrs. DeBoer’s first three years of teaching at WHS, she became friends with Mr. DeBoer, a history teacher at the high school. Soon they began dating, and a year later he proposed. On October 11, it was their seventh year anniversary. Two years after getting married, they had their first daughter, Caitlin, who is five years old. Later, they had Lindsay who is three years old. Mrs. DeBoer comments, “Hands down, the hardest job to ever have is being a parent, and they are sweet and caring and thoughtful little girls and that makes me very very proud.” Mrs. DeBoer explains how she loves to go to her in-laws’ cottage at West Island in Fairhaven, Massachusetts where she relaxes and spends time with her family every year.

Mrs. DeBoer is a special teacher at WHS that many students look up to. “My main goal is to teach math, but to make it accessible and fun. I just don’t want you guys to hate math.” She continues, “Even if it’s not your favorite subject, one of my main goals is for you to feel comfortable enough to appreciate math and understand it even if you don’t love it.” It’s safe to say that Mrs. DeBoer has unexpected hidden talents, hobbies, and ways of thinking. Whether she is teaching or enjoying family time, she is always thinking about how to make her students’ high school careers more enjoyable.