Ms. Pirzadeh has been teaching for more than 30 years, 26 of them at Saint Paul. She has a bachelor of science in Early Childhood Education from Tennessee Tech University. A bit of trivia about Ms. Pirzadeh is that she was a candy striper when she was 15 at the very same hospital where she was born. She lived in the Middle East early in her teaching career for more than three years and taught first grade. She even speaks Farsi. An avid reader, she also loves spending time with her two children and three grandsons, one of whom was just born. Ms. Pirzadeh has a favorite word and teaches it to all her students: "perseverance." One of the graduating eighth graders this year recently said she remembered that word from kindergarten with Ms. Pirzadeh!