“All Teachers Need To Go Through This”

This is Kayla Banks’ first year teaching for the School District of Philadelphia. But according to those who have seen her at work? You wouldn’t know it.

One month into the 2025-26 school year, Banks’ 5th grade students at North Philadelphia’s James G. Blaine Academics Plus know it’s time to settle down and listen when she says, “Hocus Pocus.” (They respond, “Everybody’s focused.”)

She’s comfortable standing alone in the front of fidgety preteens and knows how to hold their attention. She has no problems creating lesson plans or adjusting existing ones to make them better suited to her hands-on teaching style.

Says Blaine Principal Gianeen Anyika, “I never saw a first-year teacher as prepared as Miss Banks.”

That’s because while this is Banks’ first year officially teaching, she has