{"id":367102,"date":"2026-08-09T23:16:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T23:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/367102\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T23:16:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T23:16:26","slug":"first-time-teacher-gets-ready-to-kick-off-new-school-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/367102\/","title":{"rendered":"First-time teacher gets ready to kick off new school year"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Courtney Bennett is moving into her classroom inside the walls of Tyrone Middle School. Among the tubs of textbooks, she said there\u2019s a method to her madness.<\/p>\n

While her students are getting ready to come back to classes, it\u2019s also her first day as a teacher.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t something that we were six years old. I\u2019m going to be a teacher,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

And answering the question, \u201cWhat do you want to be when you grow up?\u201d wasn\u2019t a straightforward answer for Bennett.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really struggled my first semester of senior year trying to figure out, \u2018I\u2019m applying to college, what am I going to do?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Courtney Bennett shares her excitement for her first job out of college while setting up her classroom at Tyrone Middle School. (Spectrum News\/JT Lynch)<\/p>\n

Trying to find her own career path, she looked up to people closest to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy older brother, he is an English teacher for high school. But my mom has worked in the school system since I was in third grade. My dad actually worked at Pinellas Technical College for the past couple years. So, we are all somehow involved in teaching,\u201d Bennett explained.<\/p>\n

You could say that her love for education is in her DNA. And she realized her safe space was always at school.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s excited to spend her first school year teaching math to sixth and seventh graders.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m ready for the unknown, which is very unusual for me. I am a chronic overthinker and I\u2019m always like, \u2018Well, what could go wrong?\u2019 But I really feel like USF did a wonderful job at preparing me for my first day of school as a teacher by myself,\u201d Bennett added.<\/p>\n

And hopes her students can be like her, finding where she belongs inside the classroom.<\/p>\n

Bennett will make her full-time teacher debut this Tuesday, August 11 at Tyrone Middle School.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Courtney Bennett is moving into her classroom inside the walls of Tyrone Middle School.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[137530,4996,274,54547,90888,113,2200,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,2032,835],"class_list":["post-367102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-back-to-school","tag-app-education","tag-app-top-stories","tag-back-to-school","tag-claire-alfree","tag-education","tag-instagram-bn9","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}