‘My dreams are finally coming true:’ first-year teacher from Ocean Springs shares emotions about starting career at former elementary school

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. (WXXV) — First-time students and their parents are sure to feel plenty of emotions when the First Day of School arrives — everything from joy, to sadness, to total uncertainty.

However, few might think about those first-time teachers who are feeling all of those same emotions.

“This will be my first year of course, so I’m a little nervous, but I’m really excited because this is finally– I’m finally getting to do what I’ve gone to school for and what I’ve been praying for for years, and it’s like my dreams are finally coming true,” first-year teacher Abby Peltier said.

Peltier is an incoming Fifth Grade English-Language Arts teacher at Ocean Springs Upper Elementary. She graduated from Mississippi State University with a Master’s in Elementary Education in May, and since then, she’s been hard at work preparing for her first classroom full of students.

“It has been really fun just trying to get everything together,” Peltier said. “It’s been a little chaotic, but in the best way, because I’m just like, ‘There’s always something more you can be doing, there’s something else you can get.’ But it’s been really nice because I have really great coworkers and friends who are teachers and family who have been guiding me and letting me know what to do and giving me ideas… so it’s been really fun!”

While many families are trying to wrap up those last few weeks of fun in the sun, Peltier and countless other teachers around the Coast have split time between the pool and the school.

“I’m constantly thinking, ‘Okay, what can I get, what can I prepare for,’ even just making slides on my computer or finding good resources and stuff like that” Peltier explained. “And then just setting up my classroom, I’ve been here almost every day the past week or two and probably will be until school starts, which doesn’t start until August 1st.”

There’s something extra sweet about this first year for Peltier — she’s an Ocean Springs native and attended OSUE as a child. She explains that she still sees little reminders of her time there as a student every day.

“It is so heartwarming, because for one, the desk that I have was my fifth grade teacher’s desk, and it was just so cool opening the stuff and seeing her name — Ms. Perez — on the stapler [and] stuff she left, or just little notes,” Peltier said. “It’s also awesome because my principal, Ms. Register… she was my principal in grade school, in elementary school at Pecan Park and now she’s my boss. It’s great, I love it and especially the support coming from everybody in Ocean Springs who were either my teachers or admin or counselors, or just friends and family. I don’t know, it’s just sweet.”