Barbara Olson

Barbara Olson is the Academics Coordinator and a teacher on the Eating Disorders Unit at Penn Medicine Princeton Health, a role she has held since 1999. In this position, she supports hospitalized students by keeping them up to date with their school assignments through collaboration with sending school districts, ensuring smooth transitions back to school after their stays of four to eight weeks. She also works as a private tutor, preparing students for the SAT and ACT exams, having transitioned from working with a company to operating independently. Her extensive career in education, spanning 36 to 37 years, began after earning a BS in Business Administration from the University of Delaware in 1985, cum laude, with a concentration in operations management and a minor in psychology. Following her brother's passing, she pursued her passion for teaching by obtaining her elementary classroom teacher certification and taking 24 credits toward a master's degree at Kean College in 1987. She started as a fifth and sixth grade teacher, later working part-time as a basic skills reading and math teacher, writing curriculum, and serving as a homebound instructor while raising her family. Additionally, she was president of the Career Development Awards with Educational Testing Service for approximately 10 years, where the organization provided scholarships of at least $2,000 annually to 15 to 20 students pursuing vocational or two-year college paths; her involvement was inspired by a family scholarship established in her brother's name for HVAC students. Olson emphasizes the importance of work-life balance and creative scheduling, such as part-time and job-sharing positions, to successfully integrate career and family responsibilities.