COAL GROVE – "OK everybody! If I don’t see a clear path, no one gets to go to lunch," teacher Lezlie Barton yells to the cluster of students crowded around the high school cafeteria door.

Thursday, August 31, 2000

COAL GROVE – "OK everybody! If I don’t see a clear path, no one gets to go to lunch," teacher Lezlie Barton yells to the cluster of students crowded around the high school cafeteria door.

She has lunch duty, most of which is spent asking juniors and seniors to step back from the doorway.

Why the cluster? She isn’t sure. Perhaps the students wanted to eat lunch early or just to get closer to the air conditioning that spilled out of the open doorway.

No matter what the reason, they will have to adjust to the rules and Miss Barton, only in her first few weeks herself, will have to get used to being a Hornet.

"They just don’t know who I am yet," she says.

This is her second week at Dawson-Bryant High School and she says she has already found a lot to like about teaching at the high school including extracurricular activities, a new math system and new students to meet.

Miss Barton teaches math to grades 9-12. This is not her first experience in a school. She taught at a middle school last year in Portsmouth.

Coming to a high school – and one in a new city – was a tough decision. She said she was initially wary of teaching high school, but now is glad she made the switch.

"The students know where the line is, and they respect it," she said. "It’s also nice to have students who are ready to go out in the real world. I like to help them realize how close that is, and get them ready for it. I like to see that spark of understanding when they understand what I’m teaching them, and to see them succeed where they thought they couldn’t."

After being hired, Miss Barton attended teacher in-service in Nashville, followed by another in Pittsburgh, where she learned to teach the Carnegie Math program.

"I got to meet teachers from across the country," she said. "It was wonderful. I don’t know of many schools who will let you have that much training."

Under the program, the students spend 40 percent of their learning time on the computer putting their math knowledge to real-life applications. The other 60 percent of the time is spent in group learning with other students.

"I’m really excited about this because it shows kids how they will use this knowledge in real life," Miss Barton said.

But math class is not the only place students will see Miss Barton around Dawson-Bryant. She also enjoys getting involved in extracurricular activities. She spends her extra time assisting the band and plans on directing a choir.

She said she feels it is important to get involved with the lives of her students.

"I don’t have kids, so I prefer being at school," Miss Barton said. "Some of the teachers who have kids don’t have a lot of free time to get involved with the extracurricular activities, so it’s important to me to be there for the kids."

She also said that a final thing she likes about teaching at Dawson-Bryant is the smaller school atmosphere.

"There are so many parents who get involved," she said. "I was amazed how many people are in the band boosters. So many parents get involved. This wasn’t the case in the last school I taught in."