Marlisa Harding

Lauren Chatman, a seventh-grade teacher at S.P. Arnett Middle School, is passionate about students both inside and outside of the classroom. The eight-year, experienced teacher spends her time teaching English, sponsoring the BETA Club, coaching softball and volunteering in the children’s ministry at her church.

“I just love being able to invest in others,” she said. “Letting the kids know they have value, especially in middle school, because it’s such an impressionable age. You get to make a difference and change the mind they have going forward into the future.”

Chatman has always gravitated towards imparting knowledge into others, she said, though she went back and forth in her college major. “I changed my major a few times but it always rolled back around to teaching and how I could incorporate investing in others into my job.”

She even takes advantage of the opportunity to impact children outside of the classroom.

“As much as I love the middle school level for teaching, every time I coach, I enjoy the little kids more than I think I will. Seeing their little personalities, watching them work together and seeing those little relationships blossom is just incredible.”

While she prioritizes imparting knowledge to her students, Chatman said she recognizes the importance of valuing her students as individuals. “At the end of the day, they’re not going to remember what I taught them in seventh grade but they’ll remember how I made them feel … I’ve always been pushed in that direction — investing in them so they can turn around and invest in others.”

Chatman said she draws inspiration from her mentor and former principal Owen Clanton, Calcasieu Parish School Board administrative director of middle schools. “He’s just always been that person that believed I could do great things. He saw leadership in me and pushed me to be the very best I could be,” she said.

“At the end of the day, I’ll still get a text or an email from time to time with an encouraging message from him.”

Chatman said she knows first hand the power of encouragement based on her first year of teaching where she entered mid-semester. “Subs came in and the school couldn’t seem to keep them because the kids were running them off. But I made up my mind before I even met the kids that I wasn’t leaving.”

Chatman’s grit paid off, she said, looking back on how much she grew professionally that year. “Because it was a more difficult population, you could only be your best if you were going to reach them.”

Bringing her best every day paid off in dividends, she added. “A lot of times I find those investment last beyond the year. I have some students that still reach out and still stay in touch. It all boils down, for me, in those investments, in those relationships that say, ‘You’re valued. You’re wanted.’”

Chatman earned the high honor of Calcasieu Parish Teacher of the Year this year, in one of the admittedly most difficult years ever in the profession.

If given a single wish, she said, “I would really just love to come in and teach my kids. This has been the longest short year we’ve ever had. The hurricanes and the ice storm, all the craziness — hopefully next year will be more normal and we can go back to enjoying a more traditional school year.”

Lauren Chatman is a seventh-grade teacher at S.P. Arnett Middle School and this year’s Calcasieu Parish School Board Teacher of the Year.

Special to the American Press