Forest Trails principal ‘came back home’
It has been a nostalgic journey for Cody Spraberry.
In the fall, he returned to Forest Trail Elementary School, where he got early experience as a teacher. Now he’s the principal.
Spraberry, 37, taught fourth grade there for six years, left to become an assistant principal at Hill Elementary School in Austin for two years, then “came back home” to replace Charles McCasland, who retired after 23 years at the school.
“When the position opened up, I was real excited about it,” Spraberry said. “It was a real joy to come back to families that I know.”
He went into teaching “because I’ve always liked working with kids. I thought it was going to be on the coaching side ... but that involves a lot of moving, and time away from your own family.”
Tutoring his cousin’s children inspired Spraberry to study elementary education.
“Once I started my coursework at Hardin-Simmons (University), I knew it was the right choice,” Spraberry said.
He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in behavioral science and a minor in reading. Later he received his master’s of education from the University of Texas-Arlington in educational leadership and policy.
Spraberry’s wife brought him to Austin. She was in school at the University of Texas when they met, so he visited almost every weekend and fell in love with the city.
“It was the most at home I’ve ever felt, so I thought whenever I had the chance to move here, I’d do it.” Spraberry said. He always planned to be a principal. “In the interview... I told him (McCasland) I wanted to be a principal, so he encouraged me,” Spraberry recalled.
McCasland allowed him to step out of the classroom when he had a student teacher, letting him achieve goals for his master’s program, like run a fire drill, run an assembly and attend different kinds of meetings.
Spraberry’s favorite part of the job is spending time with the kids.
“I try to get into the classrooms as much as I can,” he said. “I read to all the kindergarten classes the first week of school, and I’ve subbed when teachers needed coverage. Seeing from a bird’seye perspective, how the teachers need to reach all the kids is pretty impressive.”
Spraberry loves to interact with students. Sometimes he dons a T-Rex dinosaur costume and plays soccer with them on the playground.
“Our kids are truly special and our teachers are amazingly dedicated,” Spraberry said. “I believe that when a kid knows you love them, and you’re there for them, they can outperform expectations you or they have for themselves. We’re building humans, and academics come with it.”
One of Spraberry’ goals is to increase the involvement of fathers. He wants more of them to volunteer as guest readers and in other capacities.
“My students are lucky that most have dads at home,” he said. “Various studies show that children do better if dads read to them.”
An overall goal is to promote problem-solving skills and mold well-rounded, good people.
“I also don’t want to lose sight that kids just need to be kids,” Spraberry said.