Sherry Toole has found the right job in the right place for her passion and skills. She serves as the guidance counselor at Leflore Christian School, a position she has held for five years.
“I love it,” Toole said in her office. “It’s not always easy — nothing is — but I cannot think of anything I would rather be doing. This is one of the most fulfilling places I have ever worked.”
Leflore Christian School, reestablished in 2021 and located at 1203 Sgt. John Pittman Drive, has an enrollment of 121 students. With a mission to educate and develop the whole child, the school offers a variety of services, including individualized education and dyslexia therapy. Toole deals with a wide variety of children and their needs.
“I’m K-4 through 12th grade,” she said. “I work with the little ones all the way to high school, providing everything from individual counseling to group counseling, financial aid, and information on colleges.”
The 55-year-old Holcomb resident is married to Hunt Toole, who is a farmer, and has two children, Katie Lyons and Peyton Townsend, as well as two grandchildren, RosieLynn and Logan. She has a son-in-law, Spencer Lyons, and two stepsons, Thomas and Terry Toole.
Toole started at Leflore Christian as an elementary counselor and moved into her present position after the high school counselor retired.
Toole earned an undergraduate degree in psychology and a graduate degree in school counseling, both from Delta State University.
“I hand out hugs if they need hugs,” she said of her students at Leflore Christian, “or a Band-Aid if that’s what’s needed.”
Toole realized she wanted to work in counseling while still a student at Carroll Academy, where she graduated in 1985.
“We had a wonderful counselor, but she did academic counseling,” she said. “I didn’t see a lot of personal counseling. Everyone came to me and told me things because they trusted that I wouldn’t tell anyone else. I thought I could make a career out of that.”
She held a variety of counseling roles before arriving at Leflore Christian. “For 28 years, I have always worked as a counselor,” she said.
All students at Leflore Christian know they can come to her.
“There’s not a one of them that doesn’t know they can walk through that door,” she said. “I tell them all that they are my second children and I am their second mom. They know I’ll treat them the same as my children and that I have the same expectations.”
She keeps up with what’s going on with students both inside the building and outside.
“We are small enough here to be able to do that,” she said. “It’s very rewarding. We have very small classrooms, which makes it easier to get to know them on a personal level. They will come in and tell me about their baseball game.”
Toole said it is important to be aware of what is going on with children. “You don’t know what kind of environment they are coming from. They may have a great home environment, but maybe they got in trouble on the way to school for not doing something they were supposed to.”
The biggest challenge for Toole is reaching a student who seems to be having a problem that “I can’t put my finger on,” she said. “Oh, I’m stubborn, I keep on until I find out!”
Making sure students get the help they need is the most important thing. “They don’t have to just come to the counselor,” she said. “They might feel more comfortable talking to someone else.”
Students have issues ranging from “Johnny broke up with me!” to a death in the family to needing help finding a tutor or figuring out where to go to college.
“Anything you might experience as an adult, children go through the same way,” Toole said. “A lot of times, they don’t know how to express it and it comes out in other ways. They are fun little puzzles to put together.”
It takes a team effort to help children, she said. “Someone else may notice something that I’ve missed. It takes all of us working together, every single person who walks in this building every day.”
Toole feels happy at her job. “I always wanted to work with children,” she said, “but I never had any desire to teach. I just can’t imagine doing anything else.”
- Contact Dan Marsh at 662-581-7235 or dmarsh@gwcommonwealth.com.
