CROTHERSVILLE — As the 2023-24 school year started Friday for Crothersville Community School Corp., new principals greeted students.
Several new staff members did, too.
Crothersville Elementary School welcomes fourth grade teachers Audrey Jolissaint and Grace Monroe and fifth grade teacher Lisa Turner.
New to Crothersville Junior-Senior High School are guidance counselor Katie Whitehead, math teacher and dean of students Curtis White and math teacher Derek Turner.
Lisa Turner and Monroe are Crothersville alumni, while Whitehead graduated from Brownstown Central High School.
Lisa graduated from CHS in 1991 and held down a variety of jobs over the years, including 911 dispatcher and working at an insurance office, until going to college when she was 37 and earning her teaching license.
She spent the past three years teaching English/language arts at Seymour Middle School and was set to move to Seymour Intermediate School to be an English Language Learners teacher until Crothersville school board member Tiffany Reynolds persuaded her to apply for an opening at CES.
In early July, she was talking back and forth with new CES Principal Kyle Wilp and wound up accepting a job offer.
“Coming home,” she said when asked to describe what it means to her to land a job at her alma mater.
“I’m looking forward to smaller class sizes,” she said. “At the middle school, I had 120 students for the year — 30 kids for four class periods. That’s a lot of kids to get to know, build a relationship with, learn their likes and dislikes. Just being able to focus on 20 individual children an entire year is amazing.”
She also is excited to work with Wilp, who was her daughter’s teacher, and Superintendent Chrystal Street, who was in the same class at CHS as her brother.
“I believe everything happens for a reason, and there’s a reason why I was there. I learned a lot in Seymour and I loved my time there, but I really do believe it’s my time to be here,” she said. “I’m just so happy to know that I’m here. It is pretty awesome. I live 3 minutes from here. It just kind of made sense.”
Monroe attended Graham Creek Elementary School in Jennings County until moving to Paoli where her mom lives for third grade to the middle of her freshman year. Then she transferred to CHS and graduated in 2019.
Her next step was the University of Indianapolis to study nursing, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit and she realized nursing wasn’t for her, so she switched to education because her dad is a teacher in Crothersville and her mom used to be a substitute teacher.
“When COVID hit and we all got sent home from college, the governor was like, ‘All of you college kids need to go work in nursing homes or go work in schools and be subs.’ My dad forced me to do it (become a sub). I didn’t want to do it. I loved it,” Monroe said, smiling.
In the middle of the 2021-22 school year, she switched to Western Governors University and started subbing at Crothersville. Then in the 2022-23 school year, she became a full-time sub.
“I could be in pre-K one day and the next day be in shop or high school English, then go back to first grade or kindergarten, so I was everywhere every day,” Monroe said. “It was very straining, stressful, mentally exhausting.”
But it also helped her realize where she wanted to teach — the elementary school.
Monroe planned to teach a technology specials class this school year while finishing up her teaching degree, but Wilp talked to her over the summer about one of the open teaching positions.
“I’m really excited. I wanted upper elementary. I’ve got really great people in this hallway that are really supportive,” she said. “It’s really nice, too, because Crothersville is like a family. Once you’ve been a part of Crothersville, even if you were here for a day, you’re always a part of Crothersville at that point, so it’s a really nice connection. It’s nice to be able to have those people I’ve known for years to lean on when you need them.”
Whitehead grew up in Vallonia and graduated from BCHS in 2007. She then earned her teaching degree from Indiana State University and landed a job at Austin High School, where she taught health and advanced nutrition for 12 years.
Over the summer, CHS alum Denise Stevens, a guidance counselor at Brownstown Elementary School, messaged Whitehead and told her Crothersville was looking for a counselor. Whitehead is in her second year of graduate school to get her master’s degree in counseling.
“I always knew that I had a knack for just guiding kids in different ways,” she said. “I was always really good at giving advice, being knowledgeable about stuff, so not only can I help for future careers and explorations and colleges and stuff, but I can also counsel kids on a different level.”
Whitehead, who lives in Deputy, said she’s excited about her first counseling job. It’s different this school year at Crothersville because she will serve kids from kindergarten to 12th grade.
She will be going into the classrooms to teach age-appropriate lessons, including bullying, self-awareness, school safety and body awareness. She also wants to organize financial aid events and college and career fairs and take kids on visits to colleges and industries so they can explore options for after high school.
“I always feel like kids need to see their counselor and they need to know who they can talk to if they need to,” she said. “They also need a guiding light, and I feel like I’ve always kind of fit that role.”
Whitehead has made connections in the community and has felt welcomed at the school since being hired in July.
“Everybody is so welcoming, so helpful, and I’m just excited to show them that your new team is going to exceed those expectations, we’re hearing you, we’re going to change and it’s going to be for the better,” she said. “That’s why I’m saying, ‘Don’t sleep on Crothersville this year.’ I’m not saying we’re reinventing the wheel here, but it’s going to be an improvement, and I’m excited to be a part of that team.”
Jolissaint is from Sellersburg and graduated from Silver Creek High School in 2014. She then headed to Vincennes University to follow a medical track but switched to teaching.
“I took a course in high school just for fun, and I really couldn’t stop thinking about it,” she said. “It was just a one-on-one education course, and I got to go into a fourth grade classroom and be an aide. That’s what made me want to do it.”
She switched to Ivy Tech Community College and earned an associate degree and then received a bachelor’s degree from Western Governors University.
She taught at New Washington Elementary School and then Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in Jeffersonville. She planned to return to there this school year, but she moved to Crothersville in December 2022 and was attending the town’s Red, White and Blue Festival in June and learned about a job opening at CES.
“Thomas Jefferson is such a big community, and it’s so hard to get into small communities, so when I was interviewing, I really didn’t think I had a shot,” Jolissaint said. “When (Wilp) called me back and said that I got it, I literally cheered. I was so excited. … It just fell right into place for me.”
Going from Thomas Jefferson to Crothersville, she has about half the number of students in her classroom.
“At the beginning, it’s such like getting butterflies in your stomach and so nervous yet exciting,” she said. “It’s literally like the first page of a book. You don’t know what you’re going to get, and it’s just a new chapter for everybody. Everybody is nervous and excited, and that’s what’s great about it. … I feel very blessed to be here, and I can’t wait to see how this year goes.”
White graduated from Austin High School in 1991 and headed to Purdue University to study engineering, but when his father was diagnosed with cancer his sophomore year, he returned home to work.
He later finished his schooling and earned a degree in mathematics education from Indiana University Southeast in 1998. He taught one year each in North Carolina and Scottsburg before receiving a call to teach at his alma mater.
Over his 23 years there, he taught at the middle and high school levels and coached basketball and volleyball.
In early July, he accepted the job as girls basketball head coach at CHS. He then reached out to Street and told her he was willing to come work at the school if needed, and Monday was his first day on the job.
He’s going to teach math for the first four periods of the day and then work out of his office as dean of students.
“So far, I am very, very happy, and I’m excited. It’s very exciting for me because it’s something new. Even at 50 years old, it’s a midlife crisis,” he said, smiling. “I really, really had that excitement brought back for something new, and I think for the community, it’s somebody new coming in. I’ve always been the guy that has always been there to encourage kids, and that’s what I want to do here.”
He said he wants to see kids achieve and do their best.
“The only glory that I will ever get as a teacher and the only thing that I will ever want as a teacher is I just ask that my kids one day come back and tell me they are happy,” White said. “I’ve been so blessed over the years to meet and to teach the children of the children that I’ve taught. I’ve taught long enough in this area that I have had students, and now, I have those students’ children. It’s just such a blessing to see the kids and to see happiness.”