Teachers prepare for new school year

Channing Wright, a first year kindergarten teacher at Russellville’s West Elementary School, prepares her classroom for Monday’s first day of the new school year.

Kindergarten teacher Channing Wright sits in a small, blue chair in her classroom the week before school starts and prepares packets of information for her students’ parents.
In just a few short hours, she’ll be meeting the parents, along with her new students, for the first time at West Elementary School’s annual Back to School night and she wants to make sure everything is in order before they start to arrive.
After finishing the packets, Wright, who was hired as a kindergarten teacher for the Russellville City School System in January but is preparing to start her first complete school year as a full-time teacher, makes final touches to the sports-themed decorations inside her classroom that she’s been working on for most of the summer.
While she adjusts a baseball-shaped rug near the reading corner, a second-grade teacher walks through the door to see if she needs any help.
The teaching community is known for being tight-knit, and Wright said she’s received a lot of help and advice from seasoned teachers who know what it’s like to be preparing for your first class.
However, the second-grade teacher who is currently checking up on the new kid on the block isn’t just any teacher – it’s Wright’s mother, Tracy Ward.
Ward is starting her 23rd year as an educator and she said that while preparing for the start of a new school year is always special, this year has been even more special knowing her daughter is beginning her teaching career in the same school she got her start in.
“It has made me so proud to see her working in her classroom over the summer and seeing her starting out just like I did over 20 years ago,” Ward said. “It’s brought back a lot of great memories for me.”
For Wright, West Elementary isn’t just the place where she will work along side her mom, who was her inspiration for going into elementary education. Wright also walked the halls of WES as a kindergartener and completed her education at Russellville High School, so she said she feels doubly blessed to be working at a place that feel like “home.”
“It’s special to be working here because I know what a strong school system we have and that we have teachers here who really care about the students,” Wright said. “There is a lot of pride in our schools and a desire to see our students excel, not just because they are required to excel but because we want what’s best for them.”
But just because she has her mom by her side and she’s teaching in a familiar place doesn’t mean Wright will be coasting this year.
Like all the other teachers throughout Franklin County, Wright has been putting in the long hours to make sure the first day of classes goes smoothly.
Contrary to what some people think, she said teachers have a lot more to do than just worry over decorating the classroom.
“You do have to get your room set up and make it a good learning environment for your students, but there are other things to consider,” Wright said. “You have to get lesson plans ready, you have to get your materials organized, you have paperwork to do and parents to contact. You want to make sure it’s all taken care of before that first day because when you have 17 five year olds running around, that isn’t the time to start getting organized.”
Wright said she knew about all the hard work involved in teaching, both during classroom hours and in your spare time, from watching her mom all these years.
Ward agreed that even though teachers technically have the summer off, you never really stop working completely.
“No matter how long you’ve been doing this, getting ready for the start of a school year is always an exciting and busy time,” Ward said.
“You get anxious every year because it will be completely different from the year before. You have all new students, so you have all new ways that you have to go about things.
“This year’s class won’t be the same as last year’s and last year’s class wasn’t the same as the year before. You have to change and adapt and that takes planning.”
All that planning will finally pay off once students start streaming into the classrooms Monday morning.
“This has been a very exciting time for me getting to prepare for the first class I’ll have that will be my own,” Wright said. “It’s also been very humbling because, as a kindergarten teacher, this will be the fist experience these kids have with school, so I feel a big responsibility to make it a good experience for them.
“I’m just anxious to see what this year will hold.”