Teacher center caters to entire community
You don’t have to be a teacher to love school supplies. That’s why the Warren County School System’s teacher center is open to everyone.
The center, in its 22nd year, is the place to go if you need supplies to enhance learning in any type of classroom.
Director Shirley Hildreth said, “Teachers are our first priority but we have daycare centers, churches and scout troops use it as well. It’s open to everybody.”
Hildreth indicated the center has been busier than usual and the slow period usually experienced at the start of the summer break did not happen this year.
“Usually it really dies for the first couple of weeks,” Hildreth said. “Not so this year.”
There are stores especially for teachers, however they are located out of town which makes for a long trip for teachers when picking up supplies.
“Not everybody can go to Manchester every time they need supplies,” said Hildreth.
Competition with larger stores is not the purpose for the center. Convenience to educators is its main focus.
“Just to save them some time and energy at the end of the day,” said Hildreth. “We are always open for suggestions. If people need something, and we can find a source, we can have it here for them.”
Teachers can get many items for their classrooms free or at cost.
“We give the teachers a break any chance we can,” said Hildreth, “because they spend so much of their own money for the classroom.”
The center has several specialized departments within itself where teachers and others can get hands-on math and science kits, worksheets, videos and books on professional development. In addition, the center has volumes of information on classroom organization and test preparation. Teachers and people in the community also enjoy the well-stocked stamping and scrapbook section.
The goal is to keep the center as user friendly as possible for the entire community and to keep up with changes in education. The facility is working toward updating its video library, which is one of the most widely used sections. Ideally they would like to add more DVDs to the collection.
“That’s a dilemma we have right now,” said Hildreth. “Videos are a whole lot less expensive than DVDs. It may come around and whenever it does, we’ll go for that.”