NATCHEZ —Teachers are used to standing in front a crowd, but Monday morning they found themselves in unfamiliar territory — the audience.

Teachers, administrators and staff from each of the Adams County schools — Adams County Christian School, Cathedral School, the Natchez-Adams School District and Trinity Episcopal Day School — met together for the first time at the Partnership in Education breakfast sponsored by the Natchez-Adams Chamber of Commerce Education Committee.

The purpose of the event was to promote unity between the local schools, and more than 700 school representatives congregated at the Natchez Convention Center as the first step to that goal.

Veteran teacher Sandra Washington, a fifth-grade teacher at Morgantown Elementary, said having a meeting of this sort makes sense, since educators are all working toward the same goal.

“We are all trying to make a difference in a child’s life — white, black, green or blue,” Washington said. “No matter if you are public or private or parochial, you want to make a difference.”

Featured speaker Maggie Wade, news anchor for WLBT in Jackson, spoke about the importance of education for the future and applauded teachers for the vital role they play in a child’s life.

She said it is not the job of educators to “fix” children, but to equip them — a lesson she learned from being a mother and a wife.

“It is your job to love them, pray for them and give them the tools to fix themselves,” she said. “And with God’s grace and those tools, they can fix themselves.”

Washington, who has been teaching for 30 years, said that’s the attitude she takes not only into her classroom but the entire school.

“Every child at Morgantown is mine,” she said. “I love them all and want to impact them all with something I say or do or something I teach them.”

For teachers like Washington, that enthusiasm is half of the battle. Wade said the other half is motivating students to use their abilities.

Through her work at WLBT and particularly through her “Wednesday’s Child” adoption segment, Wade has encountered all types of children, and she believes children are capable of excelling — it is just a matter of making them want to.

“They are able, but its up to us to make sure they are willing,” she said. “If they can learn all the lyrics to those rap songs, then there is no book I could put in front of them that they can’t master.”

Wade said that while the material being taught is important, education is about instilling in children the desire to learn more.

But sometimes children have to be pushed to reach their full potential, she said. And that is where the parents step in. Wade said as a parent to a grown daughter and 18-year-old son, she understands the role parents play in education.

“There have been times that I have sat in my son’s classroom,” she said. “I’d slide into the back, and he wouldn’t know I was there until he got home.”

But she knows not all parents are that involved and knows that the educators feel stress not only from students, but also parents and the community — a job she doesn’t envy.

“As a teacher, you are expected to be a social worker, a doctor and sometimes mom and dad, and you have to do that every day with people looking over your shoulder and judging you to see if you are real,” Wade said.

But Wade said educators must stay focused on the goal — motivating children to learn.

“That is what you do every day,” Wade said.

“You are willing, and you are able.”