When you walk past Mr. Thomas Scott’s classroom in the mornings, you will often find the door closed and the lights off. Listen carefully, though, and you might hear the strumming of his banjo or the scratching of his pen on his handy “to-do-list notebook.” Take it as a sign Scott is inside preparing for a chaotic day ahead.
Scott teaches English 9 and English 10 Honors and serves as the sponsor for SCA (Student Council Association), Creative Writing Club, the Forensics team, and the Acoustic Jam Club. In short, he is a busy guy. After making breakfast and packing lunch for his sons, he arrives at school around 8:00 a.m. every day to get his work done. He gets a lot of his work done in the mornings, as he doesn’t consider himself “an afternoon or evening sort of person.”
If you catch him on a Tuesday morning, you will find him in the midst of an SCA meeting as the new sponsor for the 2024-2025 school year. “The students have tons of amazing ideas, and I have enjoyed helping them see as many of these ideas as possible become a reality,” he said. Riley Ortiz, a senior who has been a member of SCA for all four years of high school, noted, “I think a lot more things are being put to vote this year and out to the entire student body, which is really exciting. If people have an opinion, they actually get a chance to voice it, even if they can’t make it to the meetings.”
Scott teaches four classes on A days and two classes on B days. Although this year he teaches only 9th and 10th grades, he has taught all levels of English since he started teaching in 2010. On A days, he tends to work through lunch, something he has been doing since he started teaching. Ms. Jessica Leslie, the English Department Head, discussed how workloads can be especially heavy for English teachers with all the writing they have to grade and give feedback for. She shared, “For Mr. Scott to be so involved in so many other things that we know that his students love just speaks to his dedication to his students and his willingness to give back to the Woodgrove community.”
Scott’s classroom is known for its plethora of unique and compelling decorations. Just a glimpse into it reveals a vending machine he purchased on a whim, an art installation entirely composed of his 1st block’s tardy slips, and an old record player. Scott said, “I have to be in this room a lot, so I want to enjoy being in the room and, as much as possible, I want students to enjoy.” Another memorable part of his classroom is his homemade podium covered in student signatures and dates, which has a story that dates back to his Great Aunt Frances. He explained, “She had a homemade paddle that she would…well, she was a middle school teacher back in the ‘40s through the ‘60s, and she would beat kids with the paddle when they displeased her. After she paddled them she’d make them sign it. I was inspired by that. I wanted something that was mine that I could get kids to sign over the years. So I built that, and I’ve been collecting signatures on it over the years.”
Before heading home at the end of the day, where he will spend quality time with his family and listen to baseball over the radio, Scott often visits Mr. Christopher Looney’s classroom to avoid the traffic.
Scott and Looney, who teaches Biology and Environmental Science, started playing music together around December of 2023, with Scott on guitar and Looney on mandolin. Looney soon convinced Scott to purchase a banjo. Scott discussed, “I personally didn’t need much convincing, but I had to kind of convince my wife that I could get a banjo, because they are just notoriously loud acoustic instruments and not everyone likes the sound of them, believe it or not. Now, not even a calendar year later, I own three banjos.” Since then, Scott and Looney have started a band together called Karma Creak. They have been playing around the area with Jackie Scott, Scott’s wife, on guitar and vocals and Will Spaulding, a teacher at Belmont Ridge Middle School, on bass. “It’s been a great way to meet people and to continue learning, which I’m very passionate about. Not just banjo but also vocal harmonies and just stagecraft in general, which in some ways resembles the act of being a teacher in front of students. I love it so much,” said Scott.
Though this is only his third year at Woodgrove, Scott has left a great impression on the students of this school. Izzy Jewell, a senior on the Forensics team Scott coaches, shared, “He’s a very upbeat person, so even when you’re feeling a little bit down he’s always there to hype you up and be your hype man. I think everyone should have someone like that, especially a teacher, in their lives.” Woodgrove is excited to see the impact Mr. Scott will leave on our school in the future.