Off-Grid and Online: Taylor Hubbard’s Alternate Path to Teaching

When art teacher Taylor Hubbard (’24) walks into her classroom at Centennial School in San Luis, Colorado, she’s exactly where she wants to be. But it was a big move to get there.

Taylor and her husband were looking for a change when they moved from northern Colorado to a piece of land they’d bought on San Pedro Mesa in the San Luis Valley, near Colorado’s oldest town, San Luis, population 598.

They built a homestead off-grid where they went about raising their three children, a flock of ducks, some chickens, a goat, and a Scottish Highland bull named Grizz. Then, in 2022, after nearly a decade working as a freelance graphic designer, Taylor stepped in when the local school needed a long-term substitute. “I immediately felt like, ‘this is exactly what I’m supposed to do with my life,’” she said.

The kids loved her, and she loved them, thinking about them constantly, even when she was away from work. She brought local arts traditions into the classroom, and the community made her feel welcome. She wanted to make the job permanent.

However, for the district to hire her, Taylor would need a teaching license, and that required her to finish the bachelor’s degree she started in Arkansas nearly two decades earlier. With just a few semesters to go, she started looking at options through colleges close to home. Then the school’s assistant principal sent her a flyer for Western Colorado University’s Adult Degree Completion (ADC) Program. “I was beside myself with excitement because it was exactly what I was looking for,” she said.

She reached out to Western in November of 2022, and by January 2023, she was taking classes through the ADC program with scholarships “that were a tremendous help in removing financial barriers to finishing my degree, and the support of the ADC staff and all my professors was unlike anything I have experienced,” Taylor said. “It really felt like everyone was on my side, cheering me on to help me reach this huge milestone of graduation.”

It wasn’t without its challenges. She was a mother of three, with a full-time job and a homestead to operate, all of which needed her attention. “I felt like a circus ringleader, trying to balance all of the spinning plates,” she said. “It was hard, hard work! But so worth it.”

With online classes and an asynchronous schedule that allowed her to complete her classwork whenever she could find the time, ADC provided the framework she needed to complete her bachelor’s degree and earn a teaching license. In May of 2024, Taylor graduated summa cum laude and walked across the stage to receive her diploma.

“I had all of my K12 students sign my cap as my ‘why’ so I could take them with me across the stage, as I’ve been their art teacher now for three years,” she said. “It was such a wonderful experience!”

This year, Taylor received the Educator Highlight Award, presented by Adams State to recognize excellence in teaching throughout the San Luis Valley. She’s the first teacher from Centennial to receive the award since it was created.

It was a huge honor and affirmation, she said, that the choice she made to step in as a substitute teacher was the right one. “Western was the MOST essential part of becoming a teacher,” she said. “I could not have finished my degree to receive my teaching license without the incredible, asynchronous ADC program.”