When Denise McCray, the principal of the new Aiken Intermediate School, says she knows “the power” of teachers to make a difference in students' lives, she speaks from experience.
The teachers at an intermediate school in her hometown town of Phenix City, Alabama, changed her life. Their and other teachers' impact ran deep, and she still remembers their names: Donna Moulton, with “the blue eye shadow,” Angela Stancel, Rose Johnson, Annie Lindsey and Joe Nathan Wright.
Aiken Intermediate will open Monday just for Aiken County Public Schools' sixth-graders in Aiken, and McCray hopes the school's focus on “letting sixth-graders just be sixth-graders” – without distractions from older classmates – will help them, like it helped her, make the transition from elementary to middle school.
“My confidence grew,” said McCray, adding that until fifth grade she struggled with school and learning was difficult. “I went from a student who had been below level to on my level. By the end of sixth grade, I was able to be placed in advanced classes, and then moving forward through middle school and high school, I was in honors and AP courses.
“That's why I feel like this is my place right here. My mission is having that opportunity to level the playing field for students, to help build their confidence, to help them to be ready and prepared to take the next level.”
A sixth-grade-only school offers the perfect environment to focus on children's development as they grow from childhood into adolescence.
“Right now, the kids are at a very interesting developmental stage,” McCray said. “They're moving from concrete thinking to being able to think more abstractly. They're developing who they are and opinions that they have and developing that sense of self and confidence.
“If we catch them right here and give them the tools they need as they move forward, they have the skills and the strategies and the confidence they need to keep on growing and building.”
And helping sixth-graders develop that confidence will be one of the cornerstones of Aiken Intermediate School.
“It's really building confidence and teaching them to advocate for themselves and others,” she said.
McCray started her teaching career at an elementary school in Eufaula, Alabama, after receiving her undergraduate degree in elementary education from Auburn University.
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