Junior High Math Teacher
I.S. 238 Susan B. Anthony Academy, Queens
“Tammy had a special gift for connecting to junior high school students in a way that I’ve never seen in my thirty-three years of teaching. She was so loving and nurturing while also a tough advocate on their behalf. And as a colleague, she was the glue in leading our math team while helping out everyone throughout the school with her amazing technological skills.”— Kathleen Comack, a longtime colleague of Tammy Hendriks, a teacher at I.S. 238 Susan B. Anthony Academy who passed away of COVID-19 in April 2020.
With her infectious laugh, easy sense of humor, and boundless energy, Ms. Hendriks was a spark of vitality who brightened the I.S. 238 community throughout her eleven years at the school. Students and faculty alike gravitated to her and knew that she cared about them.
“Tammy was full of love and a true nurturer,” Ms. Comack says. “Every student in every one of her classes enjoyed and learned from her. As a math teacher, she was fair, fun, warm, firm, demanding, structured, dedicated and very ‘cool’ in the eyes of her students.”
Ms. Hendriks attended Molloy College, C.W. Post and the College of Saint Rose, earning two master’s degrees. In addition to her mathematics skills, she was also a talented artist who decorated her classroom with eye-catching posters of her own design.
Latesha Hachette, a former colleague of Ms. Hendriks’ from Jean Nuzzi Intermediate 109—where she began her career—recalls: “Tammy was notoriously organized and efficient. Sometimes she would come into my room and ask for something and I had to rummage through tons of papers to find it. She was such an awesome friend that when I finally found it, she would chuckle and thank me, even though it must have driven her Type A personality crazy!”
The former colleagues were reunited at an Algebra for All professional development conference in the summer of 2019, and Ms. Hachette recalls that time fondly. “We would spend those A4A sessions together problem solving, laughing about old times, and conversing about life.”
Ms. Hachette’s words echo those of so many others: “Tammy was an amazing, driven, and caring educator who left such a huge impact on her students and colleagues.”