ROGERS — Splitting her day between two schools offers some challenges, P.E. teacher Marla Caton said, but she won’t ever give it up because she won’t ever give up Garfield Elementary School.

The district’s smallest elementary school has a sense of family that she loves.

Also there’s a challenge involved. Moving between six elementary school grades, each with its own P.E. curriculum, to Elmwood Middle School, where she teaches a wellness class to older students, keeps her on her toes. Caton describes herself as someone who loves a challenge.

“I like the variety. I’m all about different stuff,” she said. Students at the two schools have different needs, she explained. The wellness class addresses drug and alcohol use. Middle-school students need someone to listen to them, but at the elementary-school level conversation isn’t deep. At the elementary school, kids need to have fun, she said.

“I love being outside and seeing kids just light up when they do something for the first time,” she said, about teaching sports skills at the elementary school level.

She’s a graduate of Harding University where two ofher sons are already playing football. The Christian education provided by Harding is important to the family, she explained. A third son will probably go to Harding, but right now he plays for Rogers High School, where her husband, Lafe Caton, is the defensive coordinator. They have a daughter in middle school.

Marla Caton has been at Garfield for five years. She is proud of her after-school running club. Thirty-one students have been taking part this year. That’s huge in the small school because parents have to be willing to drive their children home and to after-school meets at Rogers High School. It’s difficult for Garfield parents to do that kind of driving, she said.

When she’s not at school, Caton is still with kids.

“You say free time, we say kids,” she said about her family philosophy. Much of their work with kids takes place at their church, where Caton is the VBS drama queen, a title she clearly enjoys. She also works as a Bible camp counselor each summer.

Last year she coached a girls basketball team for seventh graders. She believes seventh graders need to prepare for eighth-grade sports, but middle schools don’t offer competitive sports.

Seventh-grade teams have to

Scholars, Pages 7 on 10/21/2009

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