For Love and Learning
Teachers Michael Sandler ’92 and Sara Langelier ’92 are paying it forward
Then-seniors Langelier and Sandler dressed for Formal in 1992.
Boston-area public high school teachers Michael Sandler ’92 and Sara Langelier ’92 have a “CA couple” story fit for a romantic comedy. Though they dated during their senior year, they’d been out of touch for more than a decade when, in 2003, they ran into each other on the street in Brookline, Mass. Three years after they renewed their friendship over a spontaneous lunch, they married.
Sandler has taught at Arlington High School since 2008. “I lucked into teaching psychology,” he says. After working in web design, real estate, and restaurants, he finally listened to friends’ suggestions: He earned a master’s in teaching from his undergraduate alma mater, Tufts, then landed his position. In April 2025, he was recognized with a Charles T. Blair-Broeker Excellence in Teaching Award by the American Psychological Association’s Committee of Teachers of Psychology in Secondary Schools.
“CA fanned the flames of wanting to learn,” Sandler says. “We had great relationships with our teachers—amazing teachers who got me thinking in ways I never had before.” He recalls being nervous as a senior, anticipating even greater challenge in college, only to realize how well he’d been prepared.
“As an adolescent, you’re making core memories and figuring out your identity—and what an intimate, accepting place CA was to do that,” he says. “I really felt like I could be myself.”
It’s what he and Langelier hope to offer their students.
Langelier, who began teaching French at Wayland High School in 2001, says she’s particularly enjoying her current AP French class: “They’ve bonded and they’re really playful and fun, but they love French and they love learning.”
Though she wasn’t initially a great French student herself, she studied in Paris during her junior year at Connecticut College. “I wasn’t shy about talking to people, and that’s when it came alive for me,” she says. She went on to earn a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. When she first started teaching, she says, she was touched that her former CA French teacher Nicole Fandel invited her over to share materials and advice.
Langelier regularly leads student trips to France and French-speaking Canada, and she runs a student sewing club. “It’s a fantastic way to get to know kids on a different level,” she says. “With phones and technology, there are fewer opportunities for kids to interface with adults, and even to be in community with each other face to face. As educators, our jobs are more important than ever.”
