The beginning of the 2023-2024 school year brought two new faces to the halls of BIC High School. English teacher, Mrs. Sawyer Hendrix, and EAST teacher, Mrs. Sara Sills joined the staff, bringing varying degrees of experience with them.

Ms. Hendrix is from Rector, Arkansas, so choosing BIC wasn’t a hard decision because it felt like home to her. Ms. Hendrix is new to teaching, but has quickly picked up on all of the difficulties of running a classroom. Ms. Hendrix attended ASU where she received her BSE in English, allowing her to become a certified high school teacher.  She chose ASU over any other college because of the scholarship opportunities afforded to her by the university.

Growing up, Ms. Hendrix wanted to be a physical therapist  because of her history of being an athlete. However, she grew discouraged by the Biology classes that are required to enter this career . “I wanted to work with athletes, but then we had to do biology labs, and it really wasn’t my cup of tea. They would make us label dissected animals. I wasn’t a fan.”

Mrs. Hendrix soon switched her sights to education as a potential career. She was inspired to become a teacher because both of her parents are educators and work for Rector High School. She saw how her parents impacted students’ lives and she wanted to partake in helping students out as well.

Unlike Ms. Hendrix, Mrs. Sills has prior experience working as a teacher. She has been teaching for about 10 years. Mrs. Sills, just like Ms. Hendrix, is from a small town in Tennessee. She even received part of her education in Tennessee, before she eventually moved to Atlanta, Georgia where she finished her education. Mrs. Sills’ experiences in  Atlanta were very different from BIC, especially because Atlanta is a big city compared to Monette, a small town.

“The transition from a big city to a small town was a shock,” said Sills.

Just like Ms. Hendrix, Mrs. Sills career dream was not to be a teacher originally. Mrs. Sills had worked in public relations for many years. However she found herself not enjoying it. The reason is because she would stress out over things that really didn’t matter. She explained that public relations is like advertising for a company. She also worked full time doing art for a couple of years. She even painted a mural that is located in Leachville, AR.

Like Mrs. Hendrix, the reason why Mrs. Sills switched her career focus to education is because she comes from a family of educators. She always had liked working with kids, and she had a history working in a camp as a counselor. One of the challenges that Mrs. Sills faces as a teacher is trying to add balance to the chaos in a classroom.

Teaching EAST, a class based on using technology in independent projects, also comes with its own set of unique challenges compared to more traditional subjects. “Keeping up with every kid doing their own thing, It’s hard to keep up with them. It’s also very hard to help every single kid find their passion, but I try my best to help them find their passion to the best of my ability,” said Sills.

We are very happy to welcome these teachers, and  for these teachers to be able to inspire students in BIC to achieve their goals in life. BIC hopes that they will stay with us for as long as possible. We sincerely hope that these teachers can adapt and learn to love Buffalo Island Central.