Maggi Steib

Ms. Maggi Steib is the Director of Outreach and Recruitment at Parker, as well as a Parker alumnus and parent. She loves meeting future Parker families and giving them their first impressions of the school. One of the best parts of her job is bringing people from all around the country, even the world, and giving them tours when they come to visit. Ms. Steib is very devoted to her position here. When asked, she said with a laugh that she’ll stay at Parker until they kick her out. Overall, Ms. Steib loves helping people. Without her, Parker would not be as diverse in its student body as it is today.

“This *is* my dream job.”

Ms. Steib may work for Parker now, but she has held a wide variety of jobs in the past. For a while before coming to Parker as a full-time employee, she was a parent and volunteered to show prospective students around the school in her free time. Before that, her adventure had led to a short time working for the Girl Scouts in a similar position, trying to find more kids to join the program. Prior to that position, her love for Star Wars took her into the themed party business, where she had fun designing and planning parties for her clients. Ms. Steib majored in English at Northwestern University. Even with so many jobs and studies in her future, Ms. Steib’s childhood self never thought that she would explore any of the areas she mentioned. Instead, she wanted to be a child psychiatrist when she grew up.

In Ms. Steib’s free time, she likes to do many different things. Some of those interests are watching Star Wars movies, sewing, going to museums, and exploring her new neighborhood she just moved into. Ms. Steib first became obsessed with Star Wars in 1977, when a kid in her class at Parker invited the whole class to go see it on opening night for his birthday. After seeing the movie, Ms. Steib realized she had fallen in love with it. She then asked her dad if she could see it several more times. To this day, the Steib family has lively debates over their favorite Star Wars movies. A few of her favorites are Episode III: Revenge of the Sith; Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back; and now, Rogue One. However, Ms. Steib isn't as fond of Solo because she does not believe it is a “real Star Wars movie.”

Ms. Steib first came to Parker as a student in third grade. Before she came to Parker, she attended a public school. She was a very advanced reader, and even skipped second grade. Eventually, Ms. Steib’s principal told her she could benefit from attending a school like Parker. On her first day at Parker, she walked into the classroom and saw a pet snake and a couch! It blew her mind that there were a snake and a couch in the classroom, instead of what her old classroom had: desks in a row and a teacher who hit children with a yardstick. When Ms. Steib tells that story, she hopes to encourage people to go to Parker who don't think it could be an option for them.

“To be successful here, you have to believe in the Parker mission."

Every morning, Ms. Steib wakes up at 5:00 am so that she can get to Parker by 8:00 am. She sits down at her desk and thinks about what she has to do. Her favorite decorations on her desk are a little green dragon and a Star Wars notepad that she has next to a framed picture of her family. (She doesn’t write in the notepad.) Her office is in the main building, but she often finds herself having to work in the business office across the street.

There are a lot of new skills Ms. Steib has gained in her first year on the job. She has to do a lot of organizing, planning, and making phone calls. Talking on the phone was one of the hardest challenges she had to get over when she accepted this position. She used to have to gear herself up to make a phone call. She has to do a lot of talking by giving people tours of the school. Organizing and planning is also hard because Ms. Steib has a lot of people that want to visit. Overall, she has learned to overcome and stay on track throughout her first year in her new role.

Ms. Steib has been very gracious to the sixth grade class, letting us into her everyday life through her interview, especially since it’s only the first year she has been in the role herself. She is already an immense help to Parker in making it a more diverse and accepting place for all, and as an alum, parent and employee, nobody believes in the Parker mission more than she does. We are so grateful to Ms. Steib for letting us interview her.