West Wortham Elementary prepares positive messages for upcoming school year

In less than a week, the sound of pitter-pattering feet and excited chatter will fill the halls of Harrison County Schools.

While some teachers are sprucing up their classrooms for the school year, News 25’s Toni Miles takes us behind the scenes at West Wortham Elementary and Middle Schools where educators and members of the PTA are focusing their efforts in the bathroom stalls.

It’s not every day you get a tour of the loo especially at a local school, but on this day fourth grade science and math teacher Kathryn Farmer traded her calculator for scissors, signs, and tape.

It’s a widespread labor of love that spills over to the boy’s bathroom. “We couldn’t leave our boys out. They needed to be boosted up as well. The girls were easier to do frillies, but the boys have stuff.”

Sometimes the language of love doesn’t have to be spoken; you can even find it on a bathroom stall. “What we have right here is ‘I can and I will.’ I want the kids to know that they can do it and they will do it. On this one it says ‘start each day with a grateful heart.’ In this world, it’s really hard to wake up every day positive, but I want the kids to know that they can.”

Before posting these positive messages, Farmer and members of the PTA painted the stalls and with the upcoming school year, they want to make sure that the students come in like a blank canvas, but walk away with these positive messages. “We did have some vandalism on the inside, which we painted over. We’re trying to inspire them to be positive and not negative. We definitely have to build them up and have them believe that they can do anything. I really think this quote ‘ Don’t look back, you’re not going that way.’ We can’t change the past so we just want them to look forward to find a better future.”