Community is more than just a school. For educators, you aren’t just teaching in between brick walls, CHS is a place with heart and culture, where you are surrounded by support. With things like forum and the various extracurriculars that CHS offers, people are surrounded by an atmosphere of colleagues who support each other.
CHS’s Jazz teacher, Jack Wagner, started his path to Community with a long distance relationship.
“My wife was here in Michigan going to grad school,” Wagner said. “We weren’t married yet, and we were tired of doing long distance relationships between New York and Michigan.”
Wagner packed his bags and found a job in Ann Arbor running the Ann Arbor School for Performing Art’s Jazz program and his own private studio. Wagner had heard about Community through his students that had taken lessons with him.
“I remember my wife saying to me, ‘you know, if Mike Gray,’ who was my predecessor, ‘ever retires, you should definitely go for that job. It seems like it’s perfect for you,’” Wagner said. “I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll go for it when it comes around.’”
When the time finally came around, the job opened up just a week after his kid, Natalie, was born. Despite this, Wagner interviewed for the job here at CHS.
“I went for the job and I got it,” Wagner said. “I remember being quite overwhelmed by the volume of work, the volume of responsibilities.”
Even though Wagner was a new dad and working at a new school, that did not change his drive to be an incredible teacher and father.
“I held myself to super high standards, but there is no substitute for experience,” Wagner said. “It did take several years for me to feel more comfortable with running this monstrosity that is a jazz program here.”
For Chloe Root, her journey back to CHS is personal. Root was a student at Community High School prior to attending Brown University for her undergraduate program, and the University of Michigan for her masters certification.
“Community saved my life as a student,” Root said. “It was my dream to work here, but I never in a million years thought that would have happened.”
Root was a student teacher at CHS prior to the job opening. When the job finally did open, they had already known other people here and jumped at the opportunity to teach here.
“In large schools in general, I think it’s a lot harder to influence the culture,” Root said. “I think the fact that we have a small school culture it gives us a lot more of a family community feeling, and that means a lot.”
Similarly to Root, Laurel Landrum also has deep ties to Community High School. She has now been a teacher here at Community for 20 years, but she still remembers her first day.
“My first day was Halloween,”Landrum said. “It was very spirited. There was a parade that year. A lot of people had homemade costumes that were big and bulky and there was no other school you could go to in that outfit.”
She remembers that it was so cheerful and everyone was really excited about the holiday. She had found Community different from the other schools she had heard about or taught at.
Landrum believes that the size of the community makes it more friendly in a way that you can’t find at other schools.
“I think it’s a humane place to be,” Landrum said. “I think a lot of that has to do with the relationships that students have with the adults around.”
Marcy McCormick, a science teacher at CHS, believes that Community’s teachers support each other. When McCormick was first hired, she had to shift from a traditional middle school schedule to block scheduling.
“I had great colleagues who showed me the ropes and reminded me as I was getting used to the schedule and how to teach within a block schedule since it is different than teaching in a more traditional hour-long class period.” McCormick said. “Everybody, all teachers, every year, no matter how seasoned you are, always needs that support.”
Here at Community, whether you are playing your instrument in the jazz room, laughing with your friends in forum or marching in the halloween parade, Community is a place that thrives on a supportive environment. For teachers like Wagner, Root and McCormick, teaching at CHS isn’t just a job, it is a place where they belong.
