Scott Lefke comes to ACA from Aynor Middle School where he has taught a variety of science classes since 2009. His areas of instruction have included geology, chemistry, ecology, astronomy, biology and more.
A native of Morris Plains, NJ, Lefke attended Whippany Park High where he was active in a variety of extracurricular activities. He competed on the schools’ wrestling, soccer and baseball teams but was also active in the chorus and band as well as in the Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA). As an athlete, he helped his teams to sectional titles in soccer and baseball, but it was as a wrestler that he exceled. He was a three-year team captain, a district champion, regional runner up and state qualifier.
Lefke attended Richard Stockton College of New Jersey where he earned a bachelor’s degree in biology, with a special interest in zoology.
“Vertebrate Zoology was very interesting to me and really tested my skills as a scientist with taxonomic classification,” Lefke said. “Genetics had quite an interesting lab class where we used fruit flies to find the patterns of inheritance.”
In addition to his academic focus, Lefke was a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity and was active on a championship flag football team. He also worked as a summer youth camp counselor at the Morric Center YMCA in Cedar Knolls, NJ, as well as working as a radiology department/x-ray film library technician at Morristown (NJ) Memorial Hospital.
It was during that time in college when he also got his first taste of classroom instruction, working as a substitute teacher at Warren Hills High and Boonton Township Schools.
Following graduation from college, Lefke worked with a Geotech company called GTA as well as for PK Environmental Company but, when he relocated to Horry County in 2005 to attend graduate school at Coastal Carolina University he focused more on teaching.
While working toward a Master of Arts in Teaching focused on science, he worked as a substitute teacher for Horry County Schools. He became a full-time science teacher after completing his degree in 2009.
At Aynor Middle School, in addition to being the lead science teacher for sixth, seventh and eighth graders, he also served on the summer curriculum team and was a mentor for the “Real Men’s Club” as well as the Robotics Club.
“I try to cover a subject in as many different ways as is possible so my students can use their learning style to absorb the information,” Lefke said. “I want my students to not just know it for the test or quiz, but to remember it years from now. That means they truly learned the information.”
In addition to teaching science, Lefke has also served as a soccer coach, and he sees a strong relationship between students having a passion to compete on the field and having a passion in the classroom.
“Teaching is pretty much the same as coaching,” Lefke said. “You want to see growth, improvement and learning at a higher level that is retention based, along with comprehension. Science answers the tough questions out there, the how and why of the way the world works the way it does.”
Lefke and his wife Hope, a native of Hendersonville, NC, have two sons, Micah (12) and Hunter (8). He enjoys many of the activities the Grand Strand is known for – fishing, golf, landscaping and gardening, including bonsai, and combing area beaches for shark teeth. The family also has three cats – Fonzi, Cosmo and Mickey.
