Butler Avenue’s newest second-grade teacher, Seana Kelly, is excited to not only be a part of the Dark Horse family but the community of Clinton as well.
In a recent interview, Kelly shared that she has always known she wanted to be a teacher and that she was excited to be a fourth-generation educator following in the footsteps of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother.
She excitedly shared that Butler Avenue was the first place she applied and interviewed and was overjoyed to be offered the job. Grateful and lucky were the words she most often used to describe how she feels as she moves into her first job, acknowledging that many of her friends who had also just graduated from the same education program at the University of Alabama had not been as lucky in getting their top choice.
“I moved so much growing up it’s hard to know how to answer when people ask me where I’m from. It’s nice to be somewhere consistent,” Kelly shared about being in Clinton.
She said she had fond memories of visiting her grandparents, Mary Lou and Wilbert Faircloth, in Clinton over the years, and stressed how nice she thought the community and its people were during her visits.
After visiting Clinton for her fall break, Kelly said she asked her mom, Lisa, if she still knew any teachers from the town where she grew up. Her mom, who graduated from Clinton High School, connected her with Lori Warren, a second-grade teacher at Butler Avenue, and that’s when things began to fall into place for the new hire.
Warren met with Kelly and gave her a tour of the building, answering any questions she had, a comfort, Kelly said, and something that made her confident that Butler Avenue would be a good place for her.
Kelly pointed out that she is the only new hire who studied education right out of high school, explaining that some of the other new educators had ventured into other things first or even worked in the classroom in a different capacity before taking on their new roles, experiences and perspectives; she said she believes it makes for a well-rounded school.
”I’ve always known I wanted to do it,” she attested about her love of education and desire to teach
Kelly spent time in different grade levels as a student-teacher in undergrad, with her final student teaching in third grade. This solidified second grade as her top choice. The third-graders, she said, seemed to get “a little too old” at the end of the school year for her.
The new teacher shared how much she loves getting to see the kids each day, how positive they are, and how easy it is to love them.
She is excited to set up her classroom and for it to be her own, which she never got to do as a student- teacher. Kelly shared how nice the second grade team is at Butler and how supported she feels not only by them, but by her family and community as well.
Kelly said she is thrilled to begin her first year teaching and excited about the prospects of what’s to come in making Butler Avenue and the town of Clinton her home.