LE CLAIRE, Iowa — Anxious. Excited. Nervous. Challenging. All are words Pleasant Valley elementary students use to describe starting the new school year.
"It gives you all those butterfly feelings back, every year, year after year," said Meghan Ruth, a fourth-grade teacher at Cody Elementary in LeClaire.
Mrs. Ruth has been teaching for 13 years. Eleven of those years have been with the Pleasant Valley Community School District. And every year, she's taught a new group of fourth graders.
"As teachers, you get those first-day jitters, and you kinda get to experience it along with the kids," she said.
One place to work out the first-day jitters is Mrs. Rachel Walker's morning gym class.
"I’m mostly just excited to have them here, a little bit of nerves," she said.
Mrs. Walker is working out all the nerves, too. After all, she's only been at Cody Elementary for a few weeks.
"The beginning of the school year is such an exciting time for the students and the staff, and being a first-year teacher, that excitement’s through the roof right now," Mrs. Walker said.
Mrs. Walker is from the Quad Cities. She grew up in Davenport, then attended college in Missouri before returning home for her first teaching job.
She is also excited about something a little different. She starts her day in the gym but later sees dozens of other students throughout the day.
"I’m going to be teaching a few classes of PE then being an aide for a little bit and going back and forth, so my day’s going to be a little bit everywhere," Mrs. Walker said.
Mrs. Walker is working as a paraeducator at Cody Elementary. That means she works with other teachers in the building and assists students in those classrooms with a range of learning styles and abilities.
"If it were possible, in a dream world, yes, every class would have a paraeducator," third-grade teacher Robyn Waldron said.
Mrs. Walker's first stop after teaching two physical education classes in the morning is in Mrs. Waldron's room.
After having an aide in her classroom for all but three years of her 21-year teaching career, Mrs. Waldron knows the benefits paraeducators bring to the classroom.
"They don’t just help the kiddos they’re assigned to," Mrs. Waldron said. "They help everyone. So it’s just an extra set of hands, an extra brain, an extra person to bounce ideas off of."
It is now a lesson in teaching.
"It’s going to be a learning year for me for sure," Mrs. Walker said. "I think every first-year teacher feels that way."
It's a first-day feeling you simply can't teach.
Pleasant Valley Superintendent Brian Strusz said the district is always hiring paraeducators for its schools. As of Thursday afternoon, Aug. 25, the district had nearly 20 paraeducator openings for which district leaders are hiring.