Patrice Smith: Teaching is her blessing

Patrice Burcham Smith said she feels at home in her teaching job. “I love it here,” she said of the 17-year career she’s enjoyed so far in Russellville City Schools. Born and raised in Russellville, Smith said she wouldn’t want to be living and working anywhere else.

In the beginning, she was not going down the path of becoming a teacher. When she was in high school, Smith wanted to be a nurse. She did her research and started classes for her chosen career at Northwest Shoals Community College. Where life wound up taking her instead was to her alma maters, Russellville Middle School, then Russellville High School, to be a teacher.

“My mom was a teacher, and I saw how she was able to still have time to dedicate to us and her family while being a teacher,” Smith explained. “I knew that I’d had some really incredible teachers, and it had always been in the back of my mind.”

Smith said being the child of a teacher afforded her the opportunity to see both the struggles her mother had had, some of which were “very challenging,” as well as the rewards.

“I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to teach, but I knew that I wanted to be at the secondary level somehow rather than in elementary,” Smith said. “I had done musical theater my whole life, and I wanted to keep that in my life somehow because that’s such a big part of who I am as a person, enjoying not only the academic side of school, but also the performance side. I’d had teachers that let me do both.”

She said her best subject in school was “probably science,” but the one she had enjoyed the most was English. Smith got a secondary education degree, taking classes at both NWSCC and the University of North Alabama. This qualified her to teach both English and theater, a choice she explains has given her “the best of both worlds.”

Nearing completion of her degree, she did her student teaching at Muscle Shoals High School with her former RHS English teacher, Donna Keeton. She got her first teaching job from Frankie Hammock working at Russellville Middle School.

“I tried to be what those kids needed as a middle schooler,” Smith continued. “I taught sixth grade, English and reading, staying 10 years there, also teaching musical theater, and I absolutely loved it.”

When an opportunity arose at RHS that would allow her to be an Advanced Placement teacher (AP), one of her longtime goals, she decided to go for it.

“I’ve been at RHS seven years, so this is my 17th year in education,” Smith added. “It was really hard for me to leave the middle school, to leave behind the people I taught with and the age group of kids I had loved for 10 years, but I was ready for a new challenge, so I took the position.”

Smith said she’s been in school at Russellville every year, kindergarten through her graduation as a member of the Class of 2002 and then came back to Russellville for her first teaching job. She’s stayed ever since, and she has no plans to leave.

“These are the halls where I learned, and this is the place where I had the teachers who taught me what kind of teacher I wanted to be,” Smith said, “and now I get to do that, too. I’m on the hall where I made some of my greatest memories, and when I say this is my home, it really is. One of my daughters is in school at RMS right now and the other is a nurse.”

Smith said one of her favorite things is hearing from former students.

“When I seem them later on in life, and they work a job, go to school, get into college, go work in the military, get married, have a family, whatever it is – buy their first car – every achievement that these kids make, every goal they attain, I cannot tell you how proud it makes me feel of them, and I’m so honored to have been able to see their progress down through the years,” Smith explained, noting some students have gone on to perform on Broadway or compete on “American Idol,” but she’s proud of everything they accomplish.

“My students teach me things all the time,” Smith said, noting they also provide encouragement to her just as she works to give encouragement to them. “I feel very blessed and thankful to be where I am.”

Smith is married to her high school sweetheart. They have two daughters.

Read the rest of this year’s Progress – Progress 2025.