Seaford High School's Ryan Stephens mentored a national award-winning student. Now he is, according to New York State, a 'Master Teacher.'

Ryan Stephens, a math teacher at Seaford High School with a particular interest in computer science, has been named to the New York State Master Teacher program.

The four-year program brings science, technology, engineering, and math teachers together to come up with innovative strategies for teaching their material. Stephens is one of 221 educators selected this year for the program. It is sponsored by the State University of New York.

“I’m surrounded by so many wonderful educators at Seaford, but our community is only so big,” Stephens said. “There are great things going on at districts all across New York state and all across the country. So it’s an opportunity for me to broaden my own horizons and bring that to Seaford.”

Stephens has been teaching in Seaford for five years, and he currently leads classes in geometry, Introduction to Game Design, and LIU Java Programming. He created the game design course, which teaches the Python programming language.

Stephens’ efforts on the computer-programming front are already bearing fruit for Seaford High students. Last year, his student James Toscano won the Congressional App Challenge for creating the app DailyBuddy, which allows students to express their feelings on a day-to-day basis, receive feedback, and get motivational tips.

Toscano learned to code the app in Stephens’ class, but submitted it for the award and won without his teacher’s knowledge — a testament to Stephens’ teaching skills.

Stephens is a native of Bayport, and still lives there. He earned a bachelor’s degree in actuarial science and a master’s in school leadership — as well as his education certificate — from St. Joseph’s University, in Patchogue.

Stephens found his passion for teaching in college, where he worked as an academic tutor in the math lab.

“I graduated and began working in an accounting office,” he recalled. “I didn’t realize how much I liked teaching until I was no longer doing it — I loved tutoring. I went back to the St. Joseph’s education department and they helped me expedite the process of getting certified.”

Before coming to Seaford, Stephens was a per diem substitute at Sayville Schools, and then took a job as a leave replacement in Eastport-South Manor. He was also a leave replacement in the Connetquot School District, where he taught Algebra II, and then he started at Seaford.

He said he likes to make math as fun and hands-on as he possibly can, and does that by relating it to real-world experiences. “It’s hard for students to get on board with math sometimes,” Stephens said. “So for example, the unit we just finished in geometry was polygons and solids, and one of the shapes is a sphere. So — I’m a big Disney fan — I did examples with the Epcot ball.”

He added that Seaford’s cheer team just went to Disney World, and thus that real-world experience came through.

But given his past success in teaching coding, and the new opportunity of the Master Teacher program, it’s Seaford’s computer science program that Stephens hopes to expand. The class itself is still an elective for now, and he is the adviser for the Computer Science Club.

“I believe that computer programming will be a requirement sometime in the future,” Stephens said. “Because if you think about it, everybody uses a computer, but many people don’t know how to read or write code. So I think that in this program, it will be great to keep my finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the computer science community and how to bring those new ideas to the classroom.”

Stephens’ accomplishments in just five years at Seaford have not gone unnoticed by the school administration. “He’s an aspiring leader here in the district,” Principal Nicole Schnabel said. “He’s involved in so many things, and we count on him for a lot of things. So many students look up to him, and his colleagues really respect him and look up to him. We’re looking forward to seeing how he continues to grow with the district, and this program is going to be able to enhance that.”

And Stephens is equally grateful for the opportunities Seaford has given him.

“I feel exceptionally lucky and fortunate to be to be a member of this community,” he said. “I don’t think I would be where I am today as a teacher if it weren’t for all of the support that I’ve received from Seaford.”