UPPER GWYNEDD- As I entered Mr. Christopher Frey’s office at Pennbrook Middle School before the announcements on a Friday morning it was a hotbed of commotion. Frey now does the announcements at Pennbrook and with them he adds a little bit of North Penn High School flare. Like the Brumbaugh challenge and Where’s Hynes, Mr. Frey created “The Pennbrook Riddler,” a segment in which Mr. Marty Bauer tells the school a riddle via intercom and homerooms email their responses in. Mr. Frey. Although no longer working at North Penn High School, Frey has definitely not forgotten where he started.
Mr. Frey has a slightly different role than he did at the high school, although he still teaches a few periods of physical education he is mainly a teacher on special assignment. “It’s basically a teacher doing something else in the district, not necessarily teaching; in this case I am the assistant principal at Pennbrook,” Frey said. Teachers who elect to try this are still working under a teacher’s contract, but it is more of a test run on whether or not they like being in the position they are assigned to.
“The differences are too big” between teaching and administration Frey said. “I feel like I’m a little bit bigger of a part in running the building.” Frey described himself as being a member of the “leadership team,” and he also said, regarding the administrative aspect, that he deals a lot more with discipline and finds himself “calling home a lot more.”
But when one position starts another must end. Frey taught P.E and athletic training at the high school before moving to Pennbrook so it is natural for him to look back at his pervious position. “I kind of miss dealing with high school kids,” Frey said. “We talked about what you want to do and kind of where you’re going; for these kids, it’s not even in their realm.” Frey went from teaching juniors and seniors to teaching 7th, 8th, and 9th graders.
“They don’t talk about what they want to do, they have no idea, and they shouldn’t they’re still figuring it out.”
Before Frey was teaching at North Penn, he was helping athletes recover. Frey started his career as an athletic trainer. “I kind of have an odd path as to how I got here” Frey said. He started out as the athletic trainer, and after a vacancy at the athletic training teachers position midway through the school year Frey took over the class. After obtaining an emergency teaching certificate and continuing to take classes he became a certified teacher at North Penn.
After teaching Health, Phys. Ed., and athletic training at North Penn for a few years Frey decided to take some more classes toward his principal’s certificate. After the one year course Frey obtained his principal’s certificate “with no real intentions of doing anything with it” but as luck would have it Frey was in the “right place at the right time” and got a call asking if he would like to put his certificate to use and decided to become a teacher on special assignment.
Being a teacher on special assignment Frey has a decision to make at the end of the year, as to whether he wants to return to the high school or continue on with administration.
“I haven’t left here and said oh, I hate that, I haven’t left here one day and said that.” so he clearly likes the job, but all decisions have pros and cons. “My biggest concern to be completely honest with you is that my son is almost three, my wife is pregnant, and I enjoy having time in the summer and having time off and I’m not 100% sure that at this time in my life that I want to switch my schedule… and take away from things that are [most] important to me.”
To see the entire interview and the truth behind Mr. Frey’s WWE and Slamball careers watch the entire video above.