Diya Karthick ’25

While only in her third year of teaching at Westborough, Miss Fournier is excited to be teaching in an almost normal year. She is currently one of the health teachers, but usually, she teaches P.E. and health. Due to the size of this year’s freshman class, she is teaching just health.

Miss Fournier attended Keene State College for her undergraduate in elementary education. She then went on to teach grades 6-8 math and science in southern New Hampshire. Her seventh graders would ask questions on the human body and health as that is mostly what their curriculum was on and at the time, she didn’t have many answers. She thought that it was important to be able to get those answers, so Miss Fournier enrolled in Boston University and earned her master’s in health education. She then taught health to middle schoolers at Silver Lake Regional Middle School in Massachusetts for three years before teaching at Westborough High School.

She says that her favorite part about teaching health is that the material she teaches can be applied to other areas of life.

Miss Fournier shares, “I love getting to know my students. I love when they tell me things about their life that are not necessarily pertinent to the classroom. And when they can be comfortable in class and to build relationships with them.”

She enjoys watching high school basketball and volleyball, and she has experience with playing both sports. She played basketball for 12 years, including three years in high school.

“Basketball was my family sport. Everyone played it and so it was something that I used to bond with my family,” Miss Fournier comments.

During her senior year, her basketball team wasn’t a group she wanted to be around, so she decided to do track instead. Volleyball was also one of her favorite sports. She picked up the sport and started playing her freshman year. Miss Fournier shares, “I liked learning a new sport that I was pretty decent at.”

She was brought up to varsity at the end of ninth grade and continued to play through high school. Miss Fournier also chose to pick up lacrosse during her freshman year. “I loved playing a sport that wasn’t really close to anything else I had ever played,” she says.

Similar to volleyball she was brought up to varsity at the end of her freshman year and continued to play on her high school team for four years. She also went on to coach all three sports at some point during her life.

Miss Fournier hopes for her classroom to be a welcoming place for everyone.

Freshman Diya Karthick says, “Miss Fournier is probably one of the most energetic and upbeat teachers I’ve ever had. She seems to have a passion for what she does, which makes her class all the more engaging and enjoyable.”

A special touch is the pineapples that you can find sprinkled around her room.

She shares, “It’s the universal symbol for hospitality, that’s why I have them. So everyone in my classroom knows that the most important thing is that you feel welcome here.”

As all three years of her teaching career at Westborough High School have been during Covid, one word she used to describe her experience as a teacher was evolving.

Miss Fournier says, “It’s been hard, but I’ve learned a lot. Everyone here is so inclusive and there seems to be a really great community of people wanting to be involved, people wanting to help.”

She comments that it was definitely a change to come to a new school and then have to go remote in the middle of the year. The

Sophomore Devasri Damodaran says, “She’s so nice and very easy to talk to. Even though I had her during the hybrid phase, she made sure everyone was welcome and she always cared about everyone no matter what.”

In her free time, Miss Fournier loves to take her dog, Odin, for walks, hikes, and just to explore the area with her fiancée. Baking is also another one of her pastimes as she likes to make chocolate chip cookies for others and blueberry pies. She likes to read, as English was also her favorite class in school.

When asked what her favorite quote was she says, “‘Have courage and be kind,’ it’s from Cinderella. I think it’s important to be brave and try new things but at the same time be kind to people because you never know what might be going on behind the scenes.”