By Terra Avilla
There is an incredibly special place in my heart for our County’s Educators. There is an even bigger place in my heart for the incredible teachers that my children have had.
Hearing the stories from the school day, the jokes made, the goofy stories, and the incredible amount of creativity, planning and effort put into keeping the curriculum fun and exciting for squirrelly little second graders must be no easy feat.
However, Lauren Carlton makes it look so dang easy.
“Ms. Carlton,” as my daughter and her friends call her, will forever hold a very special place in our Avilla family.
My daughter may have only met Ms. Carlton this year, but I have the privilege of saying I remember her when she was in High School. (Yes, I officially feel old, so thank you for that – Little Miss Lauren!)
She was never in trouble, but I remember that beautiful smile, and of course that same sweetness when she walked the halls of Lassen High School. I was very excited to find out that she would be teaching my daughter. Peach has absolutely loved all of her teachers, but she fawns over Ms. Carlton in a very unique way.
Ms. Carlton is funny, and sweet, and smart, and as Peach says – “dresses cool!” Nothing makes Peach happier than when she sees her out and about in the community, because Ms. Carlton not only dresses cool – Ms. Carlton is in fact, very… very cool.
Lauren is a beautiful dancer and has lent her talent to many events throughout the County, both as a performer and also as a choreographer.
Lauren, on her own free time, put together a second-grade dance team to perform at several assemblies. Yes, she chose to spend more time with her students to help teach them something she loved. And I’ll tell you – watching them perform, they loved it too. It’s hard to not like something when your instructor is just so dang good.
But that’s not all Ms. Carlton does. I cannot count the number of extracurricular activities where she shows up to support her students. Best of Broadway? Yep. She was there to see her kiddos. Downstairs all of her students were gleaming with pride! “Ms. Carlton is here! Ms. Carlton is right up front!” They squealed to each other.
“Hey, Peach your family from out of state is also here!”- to which Peach immediately replied, “Yeah… but Ms. Carlton waived to me!”
Soccer games, softball games, basketball games – she made the rounds. Always so genuinely happy to be there to watch her kids shine. Oh, how lucky for them to have a teacher who genuinely loves them so much. She is exactly who I want to be my daughter’s role model and I am so thankful, Ms. Carlton stepped into that role.
No matter where she goes in her career I know she will be successful, because of her work ethic. I hope she continues to work with children because she has such a natural talent to connect with them and make them feel so special. I wish that ‘thank you’ was enough for all that she has done for my daughter this year. It is a debt I can never repay to her. So, for now, a thank you for being one of the reasons I love where we live, will have to do.
