St. Martin teacher receives free classroom makeover of her dreams

Avery Warrick is a 2nd grade teacher, and as she heads into her third year teaching she has an entirely new classroom ready for her.

Warrick was one of only two teachers chosen by schoolgirl style from across the country to win this makeover.

“It feels like a dream,” Warrick said, explaining how it felt to see the room for the first time. “I knew with Schoolgirl Style coming in, it was going to be beautiful. But walking in, it was more than I could ever expect… or imagine…”

Still early in her teaching career, Warrick works two extra odd jobs to fund her classroom.

Schoolgirl Style got word of this, and now, Warrick won’t be buying pencils for a while.

“It definitely will make it a lot easier,” Warrick said about paying for classroom items. “I always want the best for my kids. Being at my school, we have a really diverse group of kids so I want this to be a place where they can just be happy and feel loved.”

This is exactly what Schoolgirl Style does – give teachers a room for their students that they never thought they could have.

“I taught for 20 years, and I had this blog, and I was decorating classrooms on the side. It was four years ago when I decided that I needed to do this full-time,” said Melanie Ralbusky, owner of Schoolgirl Style. “I saw the benefit of it, and how excited teachers were. It changed how they felt about coming into the classroom every day, and how the students felt. I just felt like this was my purpose.”

Avery Warrick’s classroom is not only colorful and inspirational, but it has everything she needs for a successful school year.

“The Schoolgirl Style team is so selfless. They’ve given me more than I could ever ask for,” Warrick said. “It’s not just the decorations, it’s also all the supplies, all the materials. It’s a lot of things I could never do by myself. I still can’t believe that I get to come and teach every day in this room. It’s just a great feeling.”

Schoolgirl Style lists everything used for the classroom on their website.