For two Pea Ridge teachers, life is going according to plan. Both Heather Henson Wade and Jessica Hinton Woods are teaching in the district where they were once students and that's exactly how they want it.
"There are still some teachers I can't call by their first name," Woods admitted.
"It's a different relationship, but you still respect them," Wade said.
Both worked first in other districts. Woods in Texas and Wade in Missouri, but their families were the biggest draw back to Pea Ridge. When they returned as teachers, they didn't find any surprises. And neither is worried that their former teachers will reveal anything surprising about them.
"It's a very open school," Woods said, "That's part of what makes it so great."
It's not difficult to get to know your students when you went to school with their parents, Wade said. She's met many of her former classmates' children. Sometimes, she said, when you hear a name you already know the family.
"Knowing their background helps," she said, and so far the students have been respectful.
Woods said that some of her students have already graduated and are working at the preschool her own children attend.
"It's good for the students to know you can go to school here, leave and go to college and then come back and do something good for the community," Woods said.
The biggest change since they were students is probably the size of the district, they agreed. When Woods graduated 2006, there were 43 in her class. This year's class will be 150. There are also more advanced placement classes to get the high school students ready for college.
Both teachers are also coaches and that gives them a chance to see some students over the course of several years. The students get to know them well, and often even get to know their children.
"We spend a ton of time with them. They're our second set of kids," Woods said. Because of the hours coaches put in, their actual kids are often at practice, too, she explained.
But both stepped back some from coaching in favor of spending time with their own families.
Wade teaches middle school P.E. and played basketball in college. She has three children of her own and is coaching cross country and track since it takes less time than basketball, which she coached at Pea Ridge from 2006-07 as assistant basketball coach and 2007-2014 as head coach. She coached seventh-grade from 2008-2016.
Wade graduated from Pea Ridge High School in 1999 and from College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout in 2004. Wade and her husband, Mark, have three children, Khale, 6; Kolby, 4; and Mattie, 16 months.
Woods played softball at North Arkansas College in Harrison, then went to Texas A&M in Texarkana and graduated with her bachelor's degree in 2010. She earned her master's degree from Arkansas State University in 2016. Woods coached softball for a while, but after she had her second baby, she gave up softball and now coaches just volleyball. She still goes to softball practice on occasion, but volleyball doesn't take as much time from her family. She began coaching and teaching at PRHS in 2011, teaching seventh-grade English and coaching volleyball and softball. She currently teaches 11th-grade English and coaches volleyball.
Woods and her husband Shawn have two children, Silas, 4, and Emersyn, 9 months.
Woods teaches high school English and she doesn't think the kids have changed since she was a student. They still question the relevance of her subject matter.
"They want to know when they will use it," she said. "I tell them 'every day.'"
Both coaches have advised students who see sports as a way to get to college.
Community on 03/01/2017