It’s National Teacher Appreciation Week and for one retiring administrator in Greene County, he commends the work that public school educators do.

Greene County Middle School Principal Shawn Zanders says teachers across the country generally have a concern and desire to help others, and they are taking on so much more responsibility with increased amounts of training as society evolves.

“Feels like they’re kind of the Swiss army knife of professions anymore. If it needs to be done it gets moved to the public schools and then the teachers are the ones that need to be trained for it and be prepared for it.”     

Zanders tells Raccoon Valley Radio he has a fine staff at the middle school. He points out when he first started with the Greene County School District, the staff was mostly individuals with several years of experience and over time there’s been turnover with younger staff, but he feels there’s always been a balance.

“And I think the combination of those two things is really valuable for a school to be able to hold onto. That pre-service learning is important, but it’s that on the job, day-to-day, ‘Hey this happened today, how am I going to deal with that?’ or ‘What would you see us doing in that regard?” And then learning from the people who had been in those positions before. Fortunately we have a number of those people on our staff who can and do share that guidance and that support for our younger staff, and that’s really important.”  

National Teacher Appreciation Week is May 8th-12th.