09-06-2025
UNCG student teacher spending year in High Point classroom
GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) — It's sometimes hard to tell what you want to do with your life until you've tried it.
Alyssa Olmedo had a good idea of what staying in a classroom beyond being a student might be like.
'I just love history and social studies in general, and it seemed like a cool opportunity to just get to talk about that all the time,' Olmedo said.
To complete her education major at UNC Greensboro, Olmedo has to spend a year student teaching. She's doing that year at High Point Central High School. A lot of what she's done during that year hasn't surprised her.
'It has been what I thought it would be, which is challenging, so it's been good,' Olmedo said. 'But I've had a lot of support. Ms. Ranew is wonderful, and she's been really, really helpful … Sometimes, I need her to tell me it's OK … Some days are hard, so that's really helpful.'
Kayla Ranew is overseeing Olmedo's time in the classroom. As a veteran teacher, she understands the challenges new teachers face.
'She had to teach two lessons that she filmed and sent back to her professor at UNCG,' Ranew said. 'She's at the football games, did homecoming with me and really got herself involved with the school … Starting second semester, they're all in, so she's planning. She's grading. She's teaching every day.'
Ranew understands the value of having young people buy into the profession. She said that UNCG, which is her alma mater, has about half as many education majors as it did when she was there a little more than a decade ago.
'When I was at UNCG, my program for social studies was somewhere between 20 and 30 people, and now her program is less than 10 people,' Ranew said.
Meanwhile, Olmedo is learning that teaching in a classroom isn't even the majority of where she'll spend her time and energy. She'll also be doing events and other things that help students get through their day. The team of teachers that HPCHS has developed helps make it all work.
'I never realized until being here all day, every day, how much you really do interact with the other teachers around you and how much of a support system they can be … Sometimes, it really is just nice to have a conversation with other teachers on the hallway about stuff that's going on. I guess I never considered how much of teaching is team-based,' Olmedo said.
See more in the latest Saved By the Bell edition of The Buckley Report.
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