Watterson, Barbara

Learning Lab Specialist
Barbara Watterson

Ms. Watterson has been a teacher at Austin Jewish Academy since 2020. She has extensive teaching experience in both public and private schools in West Virginia, Ohio, and Texas. Ms. Watterson has taught students from early childhood through eighth grade with 17 of those years teaching first grade. Her 25-year career at Eanes ISD included teaching Life Skills, RTI (Response to Intervention), and both first and second grade. She taught for six years at The Schools of Paragon, and started their primary grades program.

She believes a good teacher must teach with compassion, energy, and humor. Celebrating successes, big and small, along the way is important as students learn individually and in groups throughout the day. She loves the family community at AJA, the ability to teach in creative ways, and the opportunity to help students in multiple grades.

She lives in Crestview and is often seen walking her dog Ozzy, a rescue tripod that zooms along in his cart, throughout the neighborhood. Her son, Colin, earned his bachelor’s degree from Emory University and his JD from the University of Texas. Ms. Watterson was a volunteer with Divine Canines for 12 years and enjoyed making visits to retirement facilities and libraries with her now deceased dog, Jarvis. Other hobbies include reading, gardening, cross stitching, and grinding out laps at Deep Eddy Pool.

Ms. Watterson earned a Bachelor of Science in Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Science in Education from the University of Dayton.