Kristin Payne
Primary Grades Specialist
Kristin Payne brings a wealth of classroom teaching experience to Blaze School. Kristin earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies, with a Life and Earth Science Specialization, at Southwest Texas State University. She holds Texas Teacher Certificates in Elementary Education and K-8 Life and Earth School Science.
Kristin has lived in Dripping Springs and comes to us with twenty-eight years experience in education. She taught fifth grade for two years before moving to fourth grade where she remained for eleven years, serving on the campus leadership committee and as the lead teacher for her grade level team.
After thirteen years as an elementary educator, Kristin moved to teach middle school which enabled her to specialize in her area of passion – science! She taught at grades six through eight for the last fifteen years of her career. In addition to her experience specializing in science at all levels in middle school, Kristin taught students identified as gifted and talented in a self-contained science class. She considers this experience among the most rewarding times for her as a teacher, as the advanced students’ interests and insatiable desire to learn both inspired and challenged her, shaping her into the teacher she is today.
Kristin attended The College Board’s Pre-Advanced Placement Summer Institute training to better prepare students for rigorous Advanced Placement science courses in high school. She spent much of her middle school career as a teacher representative on the campus leadership team.
Kristin retired from Dripping Springs ISD in May, but after finding Blaze School, she knew she was not truly ready to retire. She is just as excited about teaching at Blaze as she was at the beginning of her teaching career. On beautiful Blaze Ranch with all it has to offer, she is thrilled to get back to her roots in elementary education where she first discovered a passion for challenging, inspiring, and molding young scholars to be the best versions of themselves academically, emotionally, and socially.