After 20 years in theater, a Whiteland Community High School teacher decided she wanted to pursue a new passion.
Raenell Smith recently took over the position of the director of the media center at the high school, and this year retired from her position as the theater department director after 18 years and working as an English and theater teacher, ending a 20-year career in professional theater.
“People seem dumbfounded that I made a change, but that’s a whole career. It wasn’t five minutes; 20 years,” Smith said.
Last year, she continued to teach some of her theater classes and run the theater department to create a better transition to the position in the media center.
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“I set myself up to walk in and be the media specialist this year,” Smith said. “Unlike if I just put the brakes on one and started the other, it would’ve been shocking.”
Now, she plans to fully dedicate her time to further improving the media center to better benefit students.
Already, Smith added a board games section, new furniture and created different events to engage students, including an event in February she called blind dating with books.
“I had quite a few kids who had never been in here their whole high school careers come in and pick up a blind date book,” she said.
Even though she’s not in a classroom anymore, Smith said she’s still teaching, just in a different environment. Students are getting more familiar with the media center, and more changes and additions are coming, she said.
Smith hopes this school year to get more students and teachers involved with the services offered at the center, she said.
“I hope it will become the bustling heart of the school,” she said.
She has also been working on co-teaching technology classes and planning with teachers to help expand their lessons, work she hopes to do more of in the future.
“Part of this job is collaborative teaching,” she said. “That’s my job is to support curriculum, support teachers and support students.”
Smith also gets to spend one-on-one time with students, something classroom teachers don’t always get much time to do with classes of 25 to 30 students, she said.
“They ask me for something directly and I can spend 20 minutes with a kid,” Smith said. “We can sit and have a discussion about a book, I can help you with an essay, I can send you to somebody for math.”
