Teacher Couple - Ms. King and Dr. King

How did you meet?

Jenna King: So we met at a new faculty orientation as we both started the same year, in 2004. There were a lot of people in our age bracket who started at that time and we ended up becoming friends with a lot of that group and so we spent a lot of time together…obviously at work and at new faculty programming but also socially. I think that happens a lot right…when you're single, ...have time… and don't have kids, you have time to hang out socially outside of work…. Oh, and we both lived on the Upper West Side. That's actually kind of a funny story.

Jonathan King: I knew you were going to tell that story.

Jenna King: Mr. Kildall, ...the head of upper school a few years ago, …hired both of us and at the time, I lived on 85th Street, Dr. King lived on 87th Street and [Mr. Kildall] was like, oh, well, you guys can carpool to work. And I was like, why is my work asking me to drive this guy to work with me? And I was like, well, maybe but I was not so into it. It seems kind of weird, but OK. And so, long story short, we both ended up driving ourselves and we carpooled with other people. But the funny part was I lived closer to the park and he lived closer to Riverside and on Friday nights, he would…sail home from work and easily park and it took me forever and I was, really stubborn about going far from my apartment to park, and he'd call me to say how are you doing? I'm like, I'm still parking. So it was just kind of a funny little story. Fun way that we bonded.

What’s your favorite thing about the other person?

Jonathan King: There’s so many things. I think Jenna has a huge dedication to anything that she does, and she doesn't skimp on anything. So once she decides she's going to do something, she will put all of herself into it, which I think we can see very clearly by her work at Riverdale.

Jenna King: Jonathan has very clear ideas about what's right and what he believes in and what his values are and doesn't let many things push him to deviate from those values.

What’s a pet peeve that your partner/friend does?

Jonathan King: It's easy when you dedicate yourself to something to lose sight of other things that might not be as obvious to you that you should focus on.

Jenna King: I'm going to make a really, really minor pet peeve. But let's just say I care more about how the pillows on the couch are fluffed.

Would you still like the other person if they were a worm?

Jonathan King: Absolutely. I would like Jenna no matter what she looked like or what form she took.

Jenna King: I think I'd be okay with a worm. If you had said a mouse, I'd say absolutely not, because I hate mice no matter who they are, what they are, or what they look like.

What’s the best part of your relationship/friendship?

Jonathan King: That's so hard. I don't know. The kids are the best thing that we've ever made. But I think that the best part is that despite the fact that superficially we can disagree about things, our values and our way of interacting with the world are pretty aligned.

Jenna King: Yeah, I agree with that. And just to name something different, I think, we've been working at Riverdale for 22 years together and that's obviously a long time and we've lived on campus for 20 of those years and I think you could easily sort of feel like your identity as a professional and as a person could get sort of conflated. I think we do a pretty good job of keeping those things separate. Even here at Riverdale, we have our own spaces, identities, friendships, and relationships and I think that's important.

Who's most likely to cry reading a book or watching a movie?

Jenna King: You

Jonathan King: Oh me a thousand percent.

How are you celebrating Valentines Day?

Jenna King: I think normally we sort of are not super focused on Valentine's day, but I think because it's part of a long weekend this year, we may end up going away with the kids.

What’s your favorite thing to do together?

Jenna King: Well, I would say travel. I think we both have very big families with a lot of siblings through many different iterations and so I think we both like spending time with our family. Like traveling with our family and sort of doing adventures with our family is something that we both like.

Jonathan King: I accept your response.