“I decided to join the army as a piano player,” says Ms. Schiafone, the chorus and piano teacher here at Kempsville High School. “It was my most favorite job ‘cause all I did in the army was play piano.”
Ever since the ripe age of five, Ms. Schiafone has had a passion for music. She took piano lessons all throughout elementary and middle school. In high school, she was asked by her school’s choir director to sing and play piano since she loved it so much.
“She’s a band person,” states Mr. Webb, the band teacher here at Kempsville High School.
Her mother had originally wanted her to become an accountant, but Schiafone declared that “‘I can do music, play piano in church on Sundays, and be a teacher during the week.’”
“So that’s what I did.”
Despite her love for sharing music, Ms. Schiafone didn’t always want to be a music teacher, but she did end up getting a degree in teaching. At that time, the pay was even lower than it is now, so she enlisted in the army. Eventually becoming a Commander and Conductor of the music branch.
She loves pianists Brahms and Chopin, stating that “Chopin is very technical,” and “Brahms, it’s so beautiful, very, very romantic.”
She also noted that she enjoys listening to “good” musical artists such as Reba McEntire, Bruno Mars, Whitney Houston, Al Jarreau, and Garth Brooks.
She continues to incorporate music outside of teaching nearly everyday by singing in her church choir, playing her dad’s old accordion, and playing piano.
Ms. Schiafone noted that music “really helps people with depression.” And that it’s “rewarding if you put the work into it.”
“Good days, bad days, happy days, depressed days, I play piano,” she says. “Sometimes if I’m having a really bad day and people are mean, I shut the door, go in my house and pull out my favorite music and play it on piano.”
When she first started teaching, Ms. Schiafone worked at a school in Suffolk, while living in Virginia Beach. That’s how she knows Mr. Webb, since he worked in the same school system before joining “The ‘Ville.”
Then one day the old band director of Kempsville High School, who she had known from the army, called her to let her know that there was a job available. So she applied and interviewed, and now here she is fifteen years later still working hard.
Over the course of her fifteen plus years of teaching, she states that the most rewarding thing about it is when students “come back and say ‘I’m still playing piano’ or ‘the only reason I went to school was because of chorus and drama.’”
“It’s you know, five and ten years later, somebody comes back and says that. It’s pretty cool,” states Ms. Schiafone.
“From my initial observations she’s an excellent piano teacher. And I know that piano isn’t one of those things that all kids want to jump on. I’m sure everybody in her class doesn’t necessarily want to, but they all seem engaged,” reports Mr. Bennett, assistant principal and the new head of the music department at Kempsville High School.
The guitar and piano classes here at Kempsville High School were started by Ms. Schiafone. Most of the other public schools in Virginia Beach don’t have these courses available.
“She’s always going above and beyond what’s actually expected of a chorus teacher,” states Mr. Webb. “Like some of the stuff they choreograph… costume, design, the theatrics of it.”
Ms. Schiafone is constantly trying to get students involved by setting up numerous field trips. This allows the students to explore music in a different way outside of the classroom.
She’s submitted so many that Mr. Bennett states “I’ve signed off on at least three or four field trips… already.”
A passionate musician, she gets all of her students involved in class. She puts the least experienced in the front of the class and always gives each and every one of her students the same attention.
“She’s trying to elevate everybody, no matter where they are,” Mr. Bennett commented.
Ms. Schiafone has deeply contributed to the school from the start of her role here at Kempsville High School. From starting two new classes to exposing her students to music outside the classroom, she is always working harder to improve the musical education of the students at this school. Without her, the music department wouldn’t be the same.
