HARLEM, Ga ()

Maybe she didn’t realize it at the time, but Archelle Washington started down the path that would lead to this job when she was a very little girl.

“I wanted to make a difference,” Washington says. “My kindergarten teacher did it to me. I felt like I needed to do the same for everybody else.”

Ms. Washington knows that kindergarten is a big deal for the children and their families. It’s the first time they’ve been away from home for an extended period of time.

“When they step into the classroom the first thing I tell them, they’re now family.”

As we approach the end of the year, Ms. Washington can really see how much progress they’ve made since August.

“It’s a lot of progress. We have a new program we’re using this year. And I can actually see a difference between the program we had last year and the program we use this year.”

Way to go Archelle Washington. Shaping young lives and reaping the rewards of a great career in the classroom.

“The success of all my babies,” she says. “All of them. I see them learning and they come back to visit me when they graduate. Seeing everything. You become a teacher because I want to be a teacher like Ms. Washington. They’ll dress up and act just like me in the classroom. So, that’s my joy.”