November celebration story: First year ISTA member Teresa Elmore
11/05/2014

 

“I feel very lucky to be here,” said Teresa Elmore while we stood on a false floor floating 30 or more feet above the stage of Central Middle School’s theatre. And she really meant it. She meant it about the space where she was standing under dust-covered booms holding stage lights and where steps away construction crews teetered on ladders repairing plaster to original archways or scurried down narrow temporary steps to land in the wings of the 100-year-old hall.

 

Elmore, the drama teacher at Central Middle who is in her first year of teaching, will get to use the 700-seat space for classes and for a production this year in the stately, red-brick school that served as Kokomo High School years ago. But more important, Elmore feels lucky to be teaching theatre to sixth, seventh and eighth graders in a well-worn, but revitalized, urban area.  

 

Two years ago survey results showed that Howard County parents and business leaders wanted more arts in their schools. Central Middle took up the slack. It’s International Baccalaureate and Integrated Arts programs now offer a framework of academic challenges not found in most middle schools. And now the good part. Central, with its impressive architecture and ceilings draped with colorful international flags like a pirate schooner, needed a drama teacher.

 

Elmore, who rapid-fire talks and gestures even while seated, told me that she graduated Ball State’s ed program and 18 days later jumped at the chance to take the Kokomo position. “It’s so neat what we are doing here for these kids in the arts. I cannot imagine having this opportunity at this age. Most middle schools don’t even dream of having a drama class—most high schools don’t.”

 

The offerings are popular. Central had to limit spots for its strings and classical orchestra class because it had only 30 pianos. And where do you see a middle school with a ballet studio?

 

She anticipates that the numbers for drama will go up after students hear about the fun. “We get to pretend play in my class and these kids are still at the age where they will do it,” said the slight-of-build, 5-foot-2-inch pixie who easily blended in with her charges while they practiced speeches for a Veterans Day production.

 

Elmore doesn’t see herself slowing down anytime soon. As she bopped between pairs of students in sixth-period she told me she’s getting married soon, dreams of playing the comedic roll of Miss Hannigan as portrayed by Carol Burnett plus wants to be more active in Association work. It’s a good thing she claims, “I have secret, super-power, high energy.” She does.    

 

Principal Holly Herrera remembers her first meeting with Elmore at a job fair as, well, high-spirted. “Teresa bounced up to me with outstretched jazz hands and belted out, ‘DRAMA!’”

 

Elmore’s spirit level hasn’t decreased and Herrera says Central is looking for funding to get productions rolling and to let Elmore’s students take the stage once construction is completed this month. And like Elmore, who says she is lucky to be at Central, it was clear that her students and principal alike feel lucky to have Elmore in Kokomo. 

 

Check out Central Middle International School here:

http://www.kokomoschools.com/site/default.aspx?PageID=1

 

To contact Elmore by email: telmore@kokomo.k12.in.us