I am an AACPS:<\/strong> Alum, Shady Side Elementary, Southern Middle, Southern High ’91<\/em> | Employee, Shady Side Elementary School<\/em>\u00a0| Parent<\/p>\n As I entered Shady Side Elementary in my new role as a teacher in August of 1996, a familiar voice spoke to me.\u00a0 It was Mrs. Sarah Sheckells, my former art teacher.\u00a0 She reached out to hug me and congratulate me on my new job.\u00a0 Over the last 21 years, Mrs. Sheckells transitioned from my classroom teacher to a peer, mentor, colleague, and friend but what she doesn’t know was that she continued to teach me and touch my heart even when I wasn’t a “student” in her class.\u00a0 She helped me become the teacher I am today.\u00a0 She is my biggest supporter and always is willing to lend a hand in any hair brained scheme I have.\u00a0 She supports our PTO, Equity Team, GOTR and any other event at our school.\u00a0 This June, Mrs. Sheckells will close her art room for the last time after 37 years of teaching.\u00a0 Even though I will miss her tremendously next year, a little part of Mrs. Sheckells will always live through me.\u00a0 Her wisdom and fairness will spread to the students I continue to teach long after she has retired to North Carolina.\u00a0 She is deserving of every accolade AACPS could bestow on her; I just wanted her to know she has my heart!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “As I entered Shady Side Elementary in my new role as a teacher in August of 1996, a familiar voice spoke to me. It was Mrs. Sarah Sheckells, my former art teacher… Over the last 21 years, Mrs. Sheckells transitioned from my classroom teacher to a peer, mentor, colleague, and friend.” –Jennifer Sturgell<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001013,"featured_media":9821,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"saved","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,131,132,148,191],"tags":[189],"class_list":["post-9812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aacps_story","category-alumni_stories","category-employee_stories","category-southern_stories","category-teacher_stories","tag-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aacpsschools.org\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aacpsschools.org\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aacpsschools.org\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aacpsschools.org\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001013"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aacpsschools.org\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9812"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aacpsschools.org\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9822,"href":"https:\/\/aacpsschools.org\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9812\/revisions\/9822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aacpsschools.org\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aacpsschools.org\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aacpsschools.org\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aacpsschools.org\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}