Proud of what teachers, support staff are doing for kids

School is back in session. I know because I attended a breakfast last week where we helped welcome over 600 teachers and school staff back to school.

I’ve worked this event for the Chamber of Commerce for more than a decade and it always makes me feel good seeing all the people who dedicate their life to educating and caring for our young people.

I can’t think of a more important job and if you don’t believe that yourself just stop and think about the teachers that made a difference in your own young life. If you’re like me you can think of a few that influenced your life in a negative way but I had a lot more that made a positive impact.

It struck me just how young so many of these teachers seemed to be. I remember a lot of them from when they were students themselves. In fact I had one of those teachers reach out on social media to find out when Heritage Days will be next year since she’s part of a group planning her 15th class reunion. Say what? I said “Didn’t you just graduate?”

So there is no doubt the generations are piling up quickly and the cultural norms are also moving a bit fast for this old fuddy-duddy.

Where did all this ink come from? I think I had like one teacher with a tattoo and he was a badass from the Navy. There may have been more men with arm tats that I’m not recalling but they were concealed under long-sleeve dress shirts.

A good percentage of the current crop of teachers has body art and that was just the stuff on display. For some reason I took note of it last week, but I really don’t care. If they’re comfortable with it and really young kids aren’t seeing something graphic, have fun with it.

Same for piercings and wild hair highlights and colors. We live in a world where parents are expressing themselves with these things so it follows that some of those parents will be teachers.

I got past these things mentally as an employer myself many years ago and as long as they’re doing a great job, it’s all cool if they pierce things I would never dream of piercing.

Teachers have a tough row to hoe these days. They are finally getting a little more money to do their important job but they don’t always have the resources they need. We’ve managed to get all the students Chrome Books since the pandemic but too often teachers are buying some of the basic classroom supplies out of their own paycheck still.

We expect teachers to perform miracles with our students after we bless them with a class size that is at least twice what it should be.

I’m not going to say I’m proud of their pink hair, arm sleeve tattoos and nose piercings, but I’m really proud of the job our teachers and support staff have been doing with our kids.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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