By Summer Crawford

news editor

@summercrawfordd

From the sounds of chalk scribbling on a chalkboard and orderly desks aligned in rows, to shiny, red apples on the teacher’s desk, educators have come a long way from the “traditional classroom” in redefining and advancing education.

One Coppell resident has come back to where her life started to embrace her new role as a teacher.

Coppell High School 2010 graduate and recent graduate of the University of North Texas, Renee Rohani has found her way back home where she is now a teacher at Town Center Elementary. Rohani received a Bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies (elementary education), obtaining an Early Childhood certification to teach through sixth grade. She is also certified in English as a Second Language (ESL), which is highly recommended in Texas.

The beginning of the school year signified her first step in being a fourth grade math and reading teacher.

“Ever since I had started at UNT I had always pictured myself coming back to apply to Coppell,” Rohani said. “When I left for UNT and started seeing other schools, I mean other districts were good as well, but it really made me appreciate the district that I came from. I realized how many leaps and bounds Coppell was from any other school I saw. Not to say that I saw bad schools, but just that you appreciate it more once you have left it.”

Leaving Coppell turned into a learning experience for Rohani, because taking time to step outside of the “bubble” gave her the opportunity to see her dream job being in Coppell. TCE was the only Coppell school she interviewed with, and she was proud to say she was a Coppell graduate.

“[TCE] brought up how I am a Coppell grad. I like how everyone seems to be proud of that, like having Coppell grads come back, because it’s a testament to when you know this district, you know it’s the best and you don’t want to leave,” Rohani said. “You know it is going to be a good experience.”

“For me I had so many awesome teachers that I wanted to be that too for somebody. The way that so many of these Coppell teachers affected me, if I could affect even one student in that way, I felt like that would be monumental.”

TCE Principal Angie Applegate saw the potential in Rohani to be a superb teacher, and how she could benefit the school because of her understanding of Coppell education.

“I felt that she had many strengths, especially looking at the way that she thought about learning,” Applegate said. “She also seemed to be a leader from some of the things that she had done in the past… We have a STEM initiative at Town Center and she was able to speak highly about some of those areas where our focus would be on science [and] on mathematics.

“Looking at her technology skills, she was very well-versed in not only what she had done through her years, but her willingness to grasp onto avenues with social media and everything that the world had to present.”

The only life Rohani knew before UNT was Coppell, going to Valley Ranch Elementary, Coppell Middle School West and East and graduating from CHS. At CHS she was involved in The Sidekick newspaper and Ready, Set, Teach!

She was a staff writer on the newspaper her junior year and business manager her senior year, at one point thinking she wanted to go into journalism. Being on the newspaper taught her valuable lessons in how to be professional, prepare for interviews and communicate with others.

“I got to interview counselors or principals from other schools, and I think that helps you overall with job experience because you are on the other end of interviewing instead of getting interviewed,” Rohani said. “So I felt confident going into teacher interviews. Just regular old people skills too. Being able to carry on a conversation.”

Her life completely changed when she entered the RST program senior year, realizing her true calling was the classroom. Through this program she was able to go on field trips to visit kids at Cottonwood Elementary and learn what being a teacher truly meant.

“I ended up absolutely loving it, and that was when I changed my major to education,” Rohani said. “I wasn’t expecting to find my job and career out of it, but I really liked it. I found myself looking forward to that part of my day, I found a good place there.

“That was my first experience being on the other side of the classroom. I wasn’t the teacher, but it was my first time of being on that side of learning.”

Applegate will be working alongside her throughout the year, as TCE focuses on blended and flipped learning. Big initiatives at the school are the 1:1 initiative with fourth and fifth graders getting Macbooks and iPads, and the Science, Technology, Math and Engineering initiative.

“As a first year teacher, it’s all about looking at the learning environment, creating a learning environment for her kids that make them want to learn, that they will thrive in, that they will learn to have fun,” Applegate said. “We have a lot with our STEM initiative, I want her to very much be engulfed with that so that she understands why we are doing certain things at our campus. One of the best things I think is that we learn so much as an educator the first year, you learn so much by working with kids, and you learn to appreciate their interests, abilities and that they will show you so much of who you are as well.

“So I think she will do a lot of inner reflection throughout the year on what worked, what didn’t work, being able to differentiate for her learners.”

Two of Rohani’s classroom goals are to help prepare students academically and create a strong moral education. Students will learn important social and life skills in working together and be able to self-reflect.

“Teaching and changing kids’ lives when they are young and being able to mold them, that is the most important job because they are the ones who will grow up and be able to do those incredible things and not have limits,” Rohani said. “It is me helping them to one day be able to make those impacts in their community and even bigger.

“Knowing that so many young people don’t have a good influence in their life sometimes, if I could be that one adult or person in a child’s life that tells them ‘I care about you and it’s going to be OK,’ I could be that one positive voice in their head that they may not otherwise have.”

Both Applegate and Rohani are ready to take on the school year, creating a tight-knit community at TCE not only with the students but also with faculty. There is much more in store to come from Rohani.

“With Coppell you know that you are going to get incredible teachers, and so I am blessed and humbled to be able to say that Coppell thought that I could be one of those teachers that I always held to such high esteem,” Rohani said.