Story by Steve Nash – Special Contributor to BrownwoodNews.com
As a student in the Bangs ISD, Shaleigh Baker was inspired by her teachers to become a teacher herself.
“Growing up, I always played teacher with my little sister and would make her do papers,” Baker said. “I would take home workbooks and I’d make her fill out the papers and I’d grade them.”
After graduating from Bangs High School and later Tarleton State University, Baker is entering her third year working at Premier High School, where she teaches freshmen and sophomores. Premier is a public charter school serving grades 9-12.
Premier’s website states: “some students need a new opportunity, while others seek an individualized educational approach that is not offered by traditional schools. Whether a student has fallen behind or simply wants to get ahead, our true learner-based environment is designed to ensure that they learn and succeed.”
For her first year at Premier — the 2024-’25 school year — Baker worked as a teacher’s aide at the school while she finished her degree at Tarleton.
“I grew up in Bangs,” Baker explained. “So after I graduated high school from Bangs, I went to school at Tarleton, and I lived in Stephenville for a year. Then I moved back to Brownwood and finished my bachelor’s degree online while I was working at Premier.”
Baker and fellow Bangs student James King were high school sweethearts, and King is now her fiancé.
Baker likes the environment of the non-traditional school. “There’s not as much stress on you about doing the lesson plans, and a lot of our stuff is automatically graded,” Baker said. “So, once we go home, we go home, and it allows us to have a better work-life balance. We get to actually spend time with our families. We’re not grading papers over the weekend and creating lesson plans.
“I like having a smaller school. I like how we get close to our kids, and we are able to develop relationships with our kids, because we do have just a small amount of kids, and they’re in the classroom with just myself and Ms. Funderburg all day long.”
Baker was referring to Caroline Funderburg, her Premier colleague who teaches juniors and seniors.
“We are so closely knit as a team that if a student needs help in a field we’re not sure about, we can ask each other,” Baker said. “But we also see the same lessons from different kids throughout the year, so we get lots of practice with all of the lessons and subjects. We’re definitely well rounded in all of the subjects.”
When asked what types of students choose to attend Premier, Baker said, “each kid has a different story. Some kids just want to graduate early. It really just depends on the kid.”
***
BrownwoodNews.com will highlight one Brown County educator per day in the month of July, based on nominations received on our Facebook page, for our Teacher Feature series.