Crabapple Lane Elementary counselor Mary Beth Thompson makes students feel at home in good times and bad.
Thompson’s family has deep roots in Fayette County. She was born and raised here. She went to Tyrone Elementary, and she was in the class that opened Flat Rock Middle as 6th graders. She met her future-husband there, and they both went on to graduate from Sandy Creek High.
“I’ve spent a lot of my life on Jenkins Road.”
Now, they’re raising their own family here. Their oldest graduated from Sandy Creek already, and two more are currently Patriots.
“I love the connection that we walked those halls, we went through those places, and they’re still great schools.”
After a decade working with their family’s printing business and with children of their own, Thompson decided it was time for something new. It was also on Jenkins Road where she found her calling after serving in youth ministry for nearly a decade at Hopewell United Methodist Church across from Sandy Creek. She found a desire to be an encourager and walk with kids and adults when they are facing tough times.
She first worked at Robert J. Burch Elementary for a few years before becoming the counselor at Crabapple Lane where she is now in her second year as a Cardinal.
She appreciates being at a school where everyone is all in, from the administrators all the way to the parents.
“It’s a very giving school,” she said. “It’s a building that works hard to meet the needs of kids wherever they are.”
She hopes she is giving them foundational tools they can use the rest of their lives.
“Once you can make kids comfortable and let them know that they’re safe with you and that they can trust you, then you can help them more and help families more,” she said. “When it’s hard is when they need those tools, and then they’ll remember it maybe one day when they’re grown and they’re struggling and they go ‘oh wait, I remember that.’”
Her passion is building relationships where students and her colleagues know they can call on her.
“When any kid or adult in this building trusts me when it’s a hard time, I’ve built the relationship that I was trying to build and I’m the safe place.”
“The Honor Role,” an official podcast for Fayette County Public Schools, features employees, rotating through key stakeholders, including teachers, staff, nurses, custodians, cafeteria workers, and bus drivers. Join us as we dive in and learn about their journeys, their inspirations, and their whys.
Episodes are available on all major podcast platforms, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and promoted on the social media channels of Fayette County Public Schools.
Episodes will also be available here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2200811.
