A Long-Time Teacher of NSA: Mr. Kipke

“I wish more schools were like this one.”

Brian Kipke, known for teaching statistics, physics, and personal finance, has been a part of NSA for almost 12 years now. He is notorious for his reserved and straight to the point personality, although while being interviewed, he also gave us moments that showed his love and appreciation towards NSA.

We opened the interview with very light and easy questions: All about work and his beginning times at NSA. Or as we like to say, “the B.N. era” (Before NSA).

“How long have you been teaching at NSA?” It took him a while to do the calculations in his head, but he eventually answered, saying, “I don’t know...I think 12 years. I’ll just say 12 years to be safe.” Moving on to the next question we asked what persuaded him to work here in the first place...long story short, he started as an instructional coach before teaching, but way before all the teaching and the instructional coaching, he was a satellite engineer. Interested about this part of his life B.N., we proceed to ask him more questions like, “Did you go to space?” and “Did you ever write your name on tiny parts of the satellite?” Surprisingly, Kipke said no to both. Although the space aspect wasn’t as surprising, many would put their names on a satellite they built themselves.

We then moved onto the next topic of questions we call, “Life During NSA.”

We had mercy on him at first, so we began with the easy stuff: “Has working at NSA exceeded or fell short of your expectations, if any?” He began to praise NSA, saying, “Oh, way exceeded... it’s like I tell everybody: it's like a Disney school. The students don’t look like Disney kids, you know, the Disney school. But at any time, there could be a song or a dance breakout.” He then changes from talking about NSA as a school and focuses on the relationships between students and staff, stating, “Everybody gets along really well. You know, we have very, very little issues with students. So, it's really a great place to be.”

Then, we focused on his opinion of NSA:

“If you could make any changes to NSA what would they be?” He replies with a very simple yet good answer, “...Just better facilities...from classrooms to the performance areas.” Thank you Kipke, who advocates for his colleagues and the arts.

Now to switch things up we asked, “Any praises for NSA?”

“Yeah, it gives everybody an opportunity to do things that they like to do.”  

We then got to the deeper questions which he gave pretty lengthy answers for, which we will try our best to shorten.

“Were there any events that happened at NSA that impacted your view about the school?”

“…it’s not just one thing. It [happens] over and over…whether it’s performances…students doing really well academically. We have so many students that do so well academically because they’re given an opportunity to be who they are without having to worry about anything…There’s no treating people differently for who they are, more treating people how they wanna be treated because of who they are.”

During the last bit of our interview with Kipke, we began to ask him questions about the past, present, and future of NSA. 

“How has NSA 12 years ago? How does it compare to NSA now?” (Past)

“Totally different. So, when we first got here…it was new administration…I think five new teachers. I was part of administration, part teacher, I was kind of in between. There was a lot of skipping, attendance was a big issue, academics were very low, some of the conservatories were really bad…it just wasn’t a great place, but it had a lot of potential. You could see the potential. So, it took a long time to get where we are now…slowly academics got better and better. We’ve doubled the AP program…attendance, we’re always in the 90%. We used to be like in a 60% for attendance…Yeah, it’s just gotten better by far, but it’s taken a long time to get here.”

“Do you have any stories about NSA at all?” (Somewhat present)

“I think the two things I had to get used to in the other schools…is that there would be students in the hall. Like we have students in the hall all the time, right? And when I first got here and be going through the hall and [I’d] say, ‘Where are you supposed to be? What class are you supposed to be in?’ [They’d respond] ‘Oh, I’m sitting in the stairwell because the acoustics are better.’ Oh...okay…valid. Or you’ll see students fighting and…not physically…but yelling back and forth…You’ll go up there and be like, ‘Hey, hey, hey you don’t need to-‘ ‘Oh no no no we’re practicing for a part.’…Stuff like that [I’d] have to get used to it and have to recognize like, okay, this is real and…this is part of school. It’s just the way school is.”

“What do you hope to see more in the future of NSA?”

“…continued growth…[I] would like to see more students get involved. I think we could easily have 600, we have about 500 right now [students at NSA]. We have, in the past, had up to 700. I think it’s very strange that the community doesn’t support us…as much as I think they should…they do a little bit, but I think that it should be a lot more. And I’m really surprised we don’t have as many students audition…I don’t think we have enough students auditioning…and I think that’s just a recruiting and perceptions thing…not because we’re a bad school and people don’t wanna go. I just don’t think they know about us.”

There was one memory he gave us that he had about NSA that we thought was super interesting:

“Is there like an event that happened at NSA that you'll never forget, like good and bad?” We asked him.

“…My gosh, there is so many of them…going to the Gibson Showcase last year, I think was a big one…We had all kinds of different artists performing at the at the Gibson…that was big. Every single graduation being at the Opry…it's been a little while, but the staff has sung before during those, so it's a lot of fun. We've done a staff choir in the past,” he replied.

“Were you in the staff choir?” 

He nods his head in satisfaction and answered, “Yeah. I've sang in the grand old Opry three times all to standing ovations.”

Before we ended the interview we asked if he had any more comments about NSA and he proceeded to say with a smile on his face, “I wish more schools were like this.”