After leaving what she formerly knew to be home in Yugoslavia, Europe lab technician Ljubica Jordanovic could have never imagined that she was going to be spending the rest of her life in the U.S. working in a science lab at a high school, but she loves her home and her job here at SHS and does not regret her decision to stay at all.

“School is where the heart is,” Jordanovic said, “It is not typical for each school that almost the whole staff is pretty much like a family, but I am very happy that this school carries that character.”

Jordanovic has had multiple jobs while in the U.S., including teaching science and  helping her husband at his Veterinary clinic but she is currently employed as a science lab instructional aide.

She has been at SHS for 16 years now. When she came back after a few years away from Southport, she became a special education teacher and now obtains a long term position in the science lab performing many tasks every day including keeping everything organized and preparing labs for incoming classes.

Science teacher Rachel Pearce is one of the many teachers that spends a lot time in the lab with their classes and one of the many that are greatful for the work that Jordanovic does.

“She is a very valuable resource,” Pearce said, “ She makes the setup and cleanup much much easier which I think encourages more teachers to do more labs because we get that little bit of extra help.”

“Because we have so many labs going on and so many classes coming in here,” head of the science department, Mark Duncan said, “Having an instructional aide or lab technician to help with making solutions and setting up labs and switching between classes is a valuable asset to our school.”

Pearce and Duncan have spent many class periods in the lab working on projects and lessons, all with the help of Jordanovic. She is always there every day to help take care of their labs and keep everything organized. For everything to work efficiently in the lab, it is crucial that everything stays organized and a big part of the organization is dependent on a single document. This document was made to keep a schedule for the science teachers telling them who is going to be in the lab on a specific day during a specific period.

“Having an organizational document where we know who is going to be in the lab when,” Duncan said, “That’s another thing we’ve done in order to help keep the lab organized.”

From keeping things organized to helping with labs, Jordanovic cares very much about her students, her coworkers and her job and everybody seems to care very much about her as well.