The school year kicked off with a bang Tuesday afternoon at Vicksburg City Auditorium.

The school district’s yearly convocation was full of music, laughter and a lesson for the teachers who will spend the next year educating children in the public schools.

“Never forget your calling, never forget why you’re here. To make a difference in students, that’s our real goal,” superintendent Chad Shealy said to the room of teachers during his introduction of speakers Donna Porter and DJ Batiste.

Porter was a senior speech teacher at Picayune Memorial High School who encountered Batiste on the first day of school in 2009.

Batiste, a gang member and lifelong troublemaker, was eager to cause a scene and promptly suggested it was time for Porter to “make a change” when it came to her husband of 30 years.

Instead of focusing on the inappropriate nature of his comment and sending him to the office, Porter responded by telling Batiste that he had charisma and made him the official classroom greeter on the condition that he come to class on time to greet the students that entered the classroom.

“What you focus on, you get more of. Mrs. P taught me in that moment all my other teachers focused on my disrespect; therefore, they got more disrespect,” Batiste said.

Porter said teachers need to be more like coaches, guiding the student on how to improve.

“If you create purpose in your classroom, they won’t look for it anywhere else,” she said of students who join gangs.

Batiste encouraged teachers to not take inappropriate comments personally but instead to focus on giving the student the skills they need to succeed.

“For the first time I had purpose within an academic setting,” he said.

Batiste said he was truly inspired by what he saw in Vicksburg.

“The power of what I witnessed today in this convocation, I’m going to be honest with you, I travel around the world and I have never, I mean I have never, felt that energy,” he said.

The convocation was led by students who use the Leader in Me program in their schools.

Seven students got up in front of every schoolteacher, administrator and official in the room and shared their favorite habit they have learned through the Leader in Me program and then prayed, introduced a speaker, welcomed or dismissed the crowd.

After the presentation of colors by the Warren Central High School NJROTC, student Zaria Neal from Vicksburg High School did a roll call of every school to which the teachers and administrators of the school answers with woops, cheers and even an air horn or two.

The lively atmosphere continued with a performance of the combined Vicksburg High and Warren Central High Madrigal Choirs with the help of students and teachers who acted out skits and danced along to the music.

Each song illustrated the journey and emotions of the beginning of the school year and the types of students each teacher would encounter, including the smarty-pants, the teacher’s pet, the free spirit, the troublemaker and the athlete.

“No matter how different your students look on the outside, they are all exactly the same on the inside,” Shealy said, emphasizing all students need unconditional love and acceptance. “If we as educators have not learned this simple lesson by now, then we are in the wrong profession.”

Things really got loud when the room exploded with teachers and coaches dancing to the latest dance crazes along with the choir.

“I don’t know what it’s going to take, but I have got to be a part of this Vicksburg Warren (School District),” Batiste said. “I knew ya’ll had it when the teachers whipped and nae naed.”