NATCHEZ — Two weeks before students walk down the halls with bare notebooks and No. 2 pencils, the teachers at Robert Lewis Middle School faced each other for the last time in an empty school this summer.

Approximately 30 teachers gathered around a table in the middle school library Friday for the last day in a weeklong teacher academy workshop.

Assistant Principal Zandra McDonald said an average of 52 out of 57 of RLMS teachers participated in the workshop, which brought in consultants to share new teaching strategies and talk about school wide changes.

“The workshop (focused) on team building and school culture,” McDonald said.

For example, McDonald said teachers discussed how they must identify and expect certain behaviors among students to change the school culture.

McDonald said the teachers answered questions as a group such as, “What does respect look like in the hallway? In the classroom?”

By talking about issues at the workshop, before students start school, teachers joined forces and got on the same page, McDonald said.

Friday, the teachers also coordinated this year’s T-shirts for each of the six houses for the school’s house system.

A house system at RLMS is comprised of six “houses,” which include four core subject teachers and approximately 100 to 125 students, all of which have the same four teachers for each core subject. The system allows teachers communicate with each other to better monitor students within the house. The system also makes streamlines communication between teachers and parents.

Seventh-grade math teacher Veronica Elery, who was coordinating T-shirts, said the shirts would include the 2011-2012 RLMS slogan, which is “Getting loud for education.”

Elery said the idea of the slogan comes from a desire to be a voice for promoting and improving education.

Assistant Principal Samuel Brantley said he heard positive comments about he workshop from teachers who attended.

“Teachers (received) good new ideas,” Brantly said.

He said the workshop allowed teachers to get on the same page during the summer, so they can implement new ideas on the first day of school.

Special education teacher Doris Malone said she learned interesting strategies for teaching core subject lessons in hands-on ways.

“I feel better prepared,” Malone said.