Room 408 at Anderson Intermediate School is significant to Melanie Wright.
“This is actually the room in which I learned to love music,” Wright said Wednesday as she waited for her first class of sixth-grade music students to arrive. “I get to come home to the very place that I started to teach music.”
Wright’s decision to return to her alma mater after 22 years teaching in Daleville Community Schools was motivated, in part, by administrative opportunities as well as a chance to participate in a new program providing additional resources to students.
“I love teaching sixth-grade general music, but also there’s an intense intervention program that we’re piloting over here as well as at another school,” she said. “I loved the thought of being able to be involved in that as the music teacher.”
Wright’s return added to an air of excitement at Anderson Intermediate, which welcomed more than 450 students back to school as a sixth-grade-only building. Administrators said they’re looking forward to capitalizing on the advantages that come with a smaller student population, including an ability to focus on areas beyond academics.
“We’re really excited to be able to work with a smaller number (of students) this year,” principal Courtlon Peters said. “I think that it’s going to be really beneficial for the students academically and behaviorally, in all aspects.”
Peters said he woke up Wednesday morning thinking about the school’s role in the community and how he and his staff will need to focus on implementing curriculum and new programming in a positive way in order to challenge their students to exceed expectations.
“I think we’ll really be able to come together as a team and focus on one grade level, focus on common goals and common plans,” he said. “The community is the biggest focus for us.”
Wright admitted that, even after 36 years as an educator, she still had the first-day jitters that come with meeting new students and kicking off a new year.
“Mine takes the form of insomnia,” she said with a laugh. “You would think after a while it would just kind of die out, but it doesn’t. It stays with you forever. I’m really looking forward to meeting them.”
Administrators said operations at buildings across the district were proceeding smoothly on students’ first day back in school, with only minor glitches reported.
“Those are typical issues that we work out,” ACS Superintendent Joe Cronk said. “There have been no complaints from anybody. The mood is light and energetic.”
Cronk said he planned to visit six of the district’s 12 buildings Wednesday, then visit the rest Thursday. The district held its annual back-to-school breakfast for faculty and staff members this week, and Cronk made a point of stressing the lofty expectations he has for everyone connected with ACS.
“This is a year of high expectations — not only for ourselves but for our colleagues and our students and our families,” he said. “We’re not going to dwell on negativity, we’re not going to give in to the rumors.
"Parents give us the best students they have every day, and it’s our duty to treat them as such,” he continued. “We have to hold students accountable to their behavior, to dress codes, to cell phone use. Those get in the way of a quality education, and that’s what we’re going to focus on this year.”
This article appeared in The Herald Bulletin.