By JAMES EVANS
Rutherford County Schools
Kittrell Elementary sits just outside of Murfreesboro, among the rolling hills and farmland stretching to Woodbury and Cannon County.
The school has a storied history and has long been a focal point of the community, which is poised to be one of the next big growth spots in Rutherford County.
Aaron Culver is in his second year as principal after previously serving as assistant principal.
“Basically, what makes Kittrell, Kittrell is we are a culture of support, we are a culture of collaboration, of care and love,” Culver said. “We support our students academically, emotionally and socially, and our staff and our teachers are our most valued assets.”
For the 2022-2023 school year, Culver searched for a motto the school could use as a rallying cry. He landed on the word TEAM, and uses it as an acronym that stands for “Together, Everyone Achieves More.”
“I wanted to come up with a way to continue to build that positive culture within the school,” said Culver. “As I was thinking about things for the new school year, something that kept popping into my head was sports, and how not one person on a football team is going to win a game, it’s going to take a whole team. No matter what position you play or how well you play, it’s going to take everybody.”
The original Kittrell School opened in the 1880s and started as a one-room building. As the community grew, so did the school, which eventually served as a high school in the area. Students walked to school until mule-drawn wagons were added to serve the children, according to records maintained by the Rutherford County Historical Society.
The school has served a variety of grade structures, including K-12 and K-8.
The current school building, which opened in 1993, serves grades pre-kindergarten through fifth and has an enrollment of 350 students. While it is one of the smaller schools in Rutherford County in terms of student enrollment, growth is on the way, Culver said.
“We’re growing fast,” he said, explaining they experienced a growth rate of more than five percent this school year.
“All of the development is now coming out here,” Culver said. “This is such a generational area because of the farms. Now a lot of the farmers are selling their land off.”
Several housing developments are under way, and they all fall in the school’s zone, the principal explained.
Within the school, that growth is also bringing together different communities — those families with rural, farming backgrounds and others who are more accustomed to suburban or urban lifestyles.
To bridge those two groups, the school hosts multiple community activities to bring parents and students to the school, outside of the normal school day.
“The two communities are very, very different,” Culver said. “I have to draw off the strength of everybody. One of the things I’ve heard the most, because we’ve had so many move out here, is how much we do as a school, how much we offer as a school.”
In February, for example, the school hosted two separate dances — a Boys Dance and a Ladies Dance. For the boys dance, the male students at the school were asked to honor the special women in their lives. Those women could be their moms, their grandmother, an aunt, etc. The same was done for the ladies dance, but on a different night.
The school has hosted community events such as Friday movie nights in the gym, a pancake breakfast with Santa, a Valentine’s Day Lunch and Learn for parents, and math nights where the educators teach parents how to do the math their children are learning in class.
The school also provides a food pantry for the community, and all the items are donated by employees, students and families to help those in need.
Support and enrichment clubs are also available to students.
Two examples are the League of Exceptional Gentlemen and the Kittrell Rising Ladies Society.
Both are voluntary and are open to fifth-graders who wish to apply. As part of their club, students work on social skills such as manners and respecting others, and they also do service projects around the school, such as the food pantry.
They also tackle tougher topics, such as those the students will likely encounter during their teenage years.
“We start with the easy stuff and then we go on to others,” said Kittrell Ladies sponsor Jill Edmond, an education assistant at the school, “like social media and how to navigate through that as a fifth-grader; the things they are going to encounter throughout the year and hopefully get them ready for middle school.”
Principal Culver said all the activities offered at the school tie back to everyone in the building thinking of themselves as an “image of excellence,” which is a key phrase in the school’s pledge. Everyone in the building can recite the pledge, and it is said every morning after the Pledge of Allegiance and moment of silence.
Focusing the schools culture on providing support and building community helps bridge any gaps in academics and puts students on the right trajectory for their futures, Culver said.
“With all the extra things we are offering here, the academics tend to solve themselves, especially if we have someone who comes here and has some academic gaps. Those tend to close because we are just one big happy family,” Culver said.
PHOTOS
(1) Drawings on the former Kittrell School and of the current school hang in the front office.
(2) Principal Aaron Culver poses with the members of the Kittrell Rising Ladies Society.
(3) Kittrell hosted a Boys Dance in February where males students were asked to bring a special lady, such as their mom, grandmother or aunt. A similar dance was held for the female students and their special men.
(4) Students gather in the gym for a house meeting.
(5) Pre-K teacher Krista Warren reads with her students.