Life has come full circle for Kryslyn Moore, a Buford High School alumna from the Class of 2014. Kryslyn was a member of the very first gymnastics team at Buford in 2013 and now, 10 years later, she is an assistant coach for the school’s gymnastics team.
Kryslyn’s journey started when her parents, Monica Phillips-Moore and Christopher Moore Sr., moved Kryslyn, her brother CJ and sister Krysinna to Buford from Pacoima, California, when Kryslyn was in the third grade. It was in the ninth grade that Kryslyn started attending Buford. Prior to that, she attended Harmony Elementary and Jones C. Middle School in what was the Mill Creek cluster. Her older brother CJ already attended BHS, where he played basketball, football and track, so Kryslyn’s parents wanted both children to attend the same school.
“I also decided to attend because of the school environment being so welcoming,” Kryslyn says. “It truly does feel like a family.”
Gymnastics was a significant part of Kryslyn’s life as she had competed at the club level with GGA Suwanee for many years. When Buford High School formed its very first gymnastics team in 2013, Kryslyn jumped at the chance to take part.
“When the team started it was such an amazing feeling to be a part of more of a team community and be competing for our school,” Kryslyn says.
The team and coaches took the lessons learned during their inaugural season and made improvements the next year, Kryslyn’s senior year. The BHS gymnastics team won its very first state championship in 2014 during the program’s second year.
Academically, Kryslyn said her favorite subject in school was always mathematics and her favorite math teacher was coach Justin Johnson. However, it would be the Career and Technical Education department’s Education Pathway that would really impact her life and would eventually bring her back full circle to Buford.
“Coach Snell was most influential to me in high school,” Kryslyn says. “I was a part of his Education Pathway class, which was my first experience in the classroom. I was able to get so much experience. Being in his class helped me discover that I wanted to be a teacher when I graduated from college.”
After graduating from BHS in 2014, Kryslyn attended Georgia Gwinnett College for two years and then transferred to the University of Georgia. She earned her bachelor’s degree in early childhood education in 2019 and later obtained an ESOL — English to speakers of other languages — endorsement.
While at both GGC and UGA, Kryslyn worked hard and was named to the dean’s list, as well as the president’s list. She was invited to join the Honors Society while at UGA and she was part of the mentoring program there. Kryslyn competed with the UGA club gymnastics team and placed in the top eight at National Association of Intercollegiate Gymnastics Clubs nationals for the three years she was there. Kryslyn would go on to graduate magna cum laude from UGA.
Sugar Hill Elementary School is where Kryslyn would get started in her teaching career prior to being hired to teach kindergarten at Buford Elementary. She is in her second year teaching kindergarten at BES and her fourth year of teaching overall. Kryslyn also is in her second year helping Tyler Ann Smith and Amanda Allen coach the Buford High School gymnastics team in her role as an assistant coach.
When asked why she chose the teaching profession, Kryslyn says, “I have always loved working with kids and being in the Education Pathway class at BHS is where I discovered I loved teaching. I also have educators in my family so I was always helping grade papers and visiting classrooms growing up!”
Kryslyn has had many exciting things happen to her in the past few years. She got engaged to her boyfriend of 4-and-a-half years, JD Sosebee, a graduate of Gainesville High School. They are busy planning their wedding and hope to get married sometime next year. Kryslyn also became a new mother when she gave birth to her daughter, Lailah Brianne Sosebee, on Sept. 23, 2022. Kryslyn and JD are happily raising their daughter in Gainesville and loving life, she says.
The Buford High School Alumni Spotlights are made possible by the generosity of the City of Buford.
