First Class Teacher

Early in August 2023, Ms. Leilani Fletcher set up her classroom, aware of her nomination for the Secondary First Class Teacher Award, but more focused on the fact that students would flood her classroom in the next week . Greenville County School officials were already set on who would win the award, which is given to those who displayed exemplary performance as a teacher during their first year in the school district. Early one gray August morning, Fletcher, Michael Peake, (the principal of Mauldin High) a few administrators from the high school, as well as her husband and other nominees for the award from Mauldin High, attended the celebration for the awards. She simply enjoyed the presence of her coworkers at this celebration, eating breakfast foods and socializing until finally the winners were to be announced. She smiles as she remembers, “I knew I was going to win once they started talking about some of the things I’ve done at Mauldin High School…”

Fletcher, a woman of awareness and ambition, seeing the teacher crisis in the country, dove right into grabbing her Master’s degree in education. Having taught before in private schools in Egypt and in nutrition education in Philadelphia, the adjustment to such a large public school in South Carolina was a smooth one. She went right into the social studies sector of Mauldin High School campus, teaching US History in a small sliver of the school ground. Now she walks through the white and orange hallways, decked out with bulletin boards celebrating the 50th anniversary of Mauldin High School, in full confidence. Fletcher’s classroom is filled with rows and columns of student desks, a few bean bags in the far corner with a cozy teacher’s desk in the opposite corner and an occasional splash of color around the room. She leans against a desk as she reminisces, “the school is similar to where I went to high school” and expresses how she “...feels at home at Mauldin…”

She carries this thought into how eager she is to meet the diverse student body that comes across her path. With that same thoughtful look, she thinks about how far she worked to get to this point and how she enjoyed the 2022-2023 school year, using her well thought out plans geared towards student interaction and a variety of activities to connect the students to history. All of these things made her stick out from the rest, her drive shining through in her classroom tucked away in the large high school campus. However, this ambition wouldn’t go unnoticed by her students, coworkers, and the staff overseeing the Greenville County Schools.

Fletcher continues teaching in Mauldin High School, with the same enthusiasm and energy in her classroom. Chandler Harwood, a junior and student of Ms. Fletcher’s US History class, explains Fletcher’s teaching style. “She goes at your pace, she’s very patient… It’s mostly lectures and slides that we go through… She also does a lot of visuals,” Harwood says. She smiles as she emphasizes how Fletcher seems “family oriented” due to her having two kids of her own and how she treats students “not necessarily as students, but also just like people in general.” With a very brisk nod and zero hesitation, she says that Ms. Fletcher receiving the award is very well deserved. Needless to say, from both her teaching and personality alike, Fletcher is definitely a first class teacher.