Kelsey Fearnley
Ms. Kelsey Fearnley has now returned back to her roots at Arlington High School. Graduating from Arlington High in 2009, Fearnley was one of the first class of students, attending while the school was still in construction.
Ms. Fearnley is the new 10th Grade Guidance counselor at Arlington High School. She grew up in Arlington but left for college to go to Brigham Young University in Utah to study Social Science teaching for her undergrad. She pursued her Master’s degree in School Counseling at the University of Tennessee at Martin. Following Graduate school, Ms. Fearnley was a history teacher for eight years and became very involved with school activities especially football. Fearnley has now been a school Guidance Counselor for three years. She is currently engaged and will have a nine year old step-daughter. She also has a cat that is 5.
“I think I am most excited just to seeing how Arlington works. I graduated from here. So seeing what changed and what didn’t change and getting to know kids.” Ms. Fearnley has been earning many new things these first few weeks at Arlington since it has changed drastically since 2009. “A student was explaining to me that you have a fourth period lunch and a fifth period lunch. Mind blown.” It will be such a sweet and unique experience as she is returning to roots but this time is part of faculty and being co-workers with some of her former teachers. Her biggest inspiration is actually a teacher at Arlington High School: Mrs. Pike. “I modeled a lot of my teaching career after how she did her classroom.”
“ ” There are a lot of benefits that come with being a former teacher as a counselor. She feels sympathy for both students and teachers in situations. As a counselor, her day is filled with schedule conflicts and helping new students read their schedule and figure out their lunch (even though she has been trying to figure it out with them).
Ms. Fearnley’s goal this year is “getting involved and building relationships.” She is coming from a school where she had built relationships with many of the students. Coming to a new school where she doesn’t really know the students has been hard for Fearnley, but she is very eager to get to know the students. Fearnley explained that she loves being with the students and forming relationships with them. “That’s why I’m in this job. For the teenagers.”