Classroom Times Are Happy Times For ReesIf Eisenhower Elementary Principal Melissa Rees finds herself in a bad mood, she knows how to cure her blues.
She visits the students in classrooms or on the playground.
"The more time I spend with kids, the happier I am," Rees said during an interview Sept. 22.
Though Rees graduated from Alexandria Community High School, all her family was from the Kosciusko County area. Her grandparents lived on Chapman Lake, and her parents had a cottage on the lake.Rees was a lake kid, and fell in love with Warsaw.
"I knew I wanted to be here," she said.
After graduating high school, she moved to Chapman Lake to live with her grandparents, and has lived on the lake since. Even when she was attending Ball State University in Muncie, she'd come back to the lake every summer.
"I couldn't figure out why my family moved to central Indiana. There's nothing there. The lakes were here," she said.
She studied at Ball State to be a physical education teacher. Right after graduating the university, she landed a job at Leesburg Elementary in 1990-91.
While at Leesburg, Rees became more involved in some of the school teams there. She had many opportunities to be involved in leadership roles.
She then decided to get her master's degree in elementary education. After earning that, Rees again received many opportunities in leadership roles for Warsaw Community Schools.
"I like working with families. I like working with teachers, having that impact," she said.
Over the years at Warsaw Schools, she worked with some really good principals. One thing they had in common, she said, was they all believed in shared leadership and building relationships.
"The success you have is built on the relationships you enjoy," she said. "I'm really into the relationship building."
Rees relishes being an elementary school principal. At the elementary school level, there's just a lot of excitement from the children that makes her job such a pleasure.
"It's a brand new world for them every day. Lots of hugs and smiles. They just have that excitement every day," Rees said.
Like any job, there are some struggles. One of the things they are finding at Eisenhower, she said, is the school has a lot of technology in the building, but the staff need the professional development to learn how to use it better. One of the goals of the school is to have staff learn how to use the school's technology so they can then, in turn, put it into the hands of the students.
Rees said she's asked the Eisenhower staff for three goals.
One of their responses is technology, which they have been working on with the support from the Warsaw Schools central administration office. Another goal is to get more proficient in Readers Workshop, and the third is more collaboration.
The staff want to learn from each other and share ideas for the classroom. If one teacher can do something really well, and another teacher is struggling how to teach a lesson, they can get together and share ideas, Rees said.
While working to become a principal, Rees had the opportunity to learn from other principals while interning for three years under different Warsaw principals. She has found being a principal is different than working under one.
"You are responsible for everything, and there are different decisions to make every day," Rees said. "You have a team, but ultimately the authority is with you. It's more of a change than I anticipated. I wouldn't change it (for the world). I really enjoy that."
Another thing Rees enjoys is her family. Her husband, Mark Bragg, is the executive chef at Grace College. Her daughter, Kailan, is a junior at Warsaw Community High School. Rees said she came up with her daughter's name and its spelling herself.
"I made the name up myself. I wanted something original," she said.
Kailan attended Leesburg Elementary when Rees taught there. However, Rees said, she was careful to just be a regular parent with her daughter.
"I just tried to let her have her own time and be her own person," she said.
In her second year as Eisenhower's principal, Rees is finding her own place as a principal. She said she's found there's an openness and welcoming feeling at Eisenhower by teachers and students' families. They are open to new ideas, and that's a strength because it allows for open dialogue and trying new things.
From the community to the teachers and staff, Rees said everything at Eisenhower is going great. The school offers some great instruction, and teachers and staff are investing themselves in the kids.
