Jeanine Dorsey didn’t intend to follow in her mother’s footsteps.
“My mother taught at North Columbia (Elementary) for 20 years,” said Dorsey, who will retire from her position as guidance counselor at the end of the school year. She has spent 32 years in education, including the last 14 at Greenbrier High School.
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Her original plan was to become a speech therapist, but when she was a junior at the University of Georgia, she realized that wasn’t the right fit for her. Someone suggested she become a guidance counselor. She changed her major and got her bachelor’s degree in educational psychology and received a master’s degree in counseling.
Dorsey grew up in Columbia County and graduated from Harlem High School before attending the University of Georgia. She also holds an education specialist degree from Lincoln Memorial University. She worked at several Georgia schools, including North Columbia Elementary School when her son, James, was a pupil there. He’s now 23 and has no desire to go into education.
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Transitioning from elementary school to high school wasn’t difficult for Dorsey. She’d worked at McDuffie County High School in Thomson and Winder Barrow High School in Winder, Ga. earlier in her career. The toughest transition was from high school to elementary, she said.
“It’s a totally different pace,” she said.
She enjoyed being at North Columbia because her son was attending there at the time. She wasn’t intending on making the move back to high school when she was offered the position at Greenbrier.
She said she was torn about it. She didn’t want to leave the elementary school, but her mother and others convinced her it was the right move because she could be at the high school when her son attended there.
“I never planned any of the moves. It was never about me,” she said. “I believe it was a God thing.”
At the high school level, her focus has been to make sure her students are taking the right classes to get the credits they need for graduation.
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What has meant the most to her during her career are the students whose lives she’s impacted.
She said she remembered one student running into her at a gas station years after he graduated.
“He had been in the military and had a family. Another young lady from Winder said, ‘I never would’ve become a teacher if it hadn’t been for you,’” she said.
Those are the memories she said she will treasure most.
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Dorsey said she’s not sure everything she will do during her retirement, but she’s looking forward to spending more time with her mother, Velma Ethridge, who is 82, and plans to get into a fitness regime. She also wants to travel.
Charmain Z. Brackett is the Features Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach her at charmain@theaugustapress.com.
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