Aurora Heights teachers get ready for their closeups

It’s so hard to say goodbye to summer, even for teachers. This year, to kick off the school year staff members at Aurora Heights Elementary opened up their first assembly of the year by showing students a fun video they created to tie into the school’s theme, “Teamwork Makes the Dream Work.”

The video, which stars Aurora Heights Principal Jim Gilbert was the result of a collaborative effort between teachers and staff at the elementary school. Once teachers decided on the theme for this year, they wanted to find a fun way to introduce it to their students.

“As a group we were thinking about how we could roll out the theme,” Gilbert said.

The video, which is featured on Aurora Heights Facebook page, opens with Gilbert sitting on the ground outside the school. Shocked to learn that school is about to start, Gilbert rushes to a nearby bus in order to collect the teachers. In the video Gilbert searches Newton for the teachers, and then he finds them at Hy-Vee, Taco John’s, Early May or at home, he tosses them a T-shirt emblazoned with the Aurora Heights theme for the year and they jump aboard the bus.

“We wanted to show the students that teachers are humans, they go to Taco John’s and Hy-Vee, they have lives outside of school,” Gilbert said.

Even though Gilbert landed a starring role in the video, he insisted that all of the credit belonged to his staff. Teachers developed the concept, choreographed the action, lined up the bus and filmed and edited the entire video.

“It’s hardly my idea at all, on this project I was leading from behind,” Gilbert said.

Teachers improvised on the fly, shooting the video on an iPad and working without a script. Running across Newton to film different segments, McGonegle admitted they definitely got some strange looks. Flying by the seat of your pants created plenty of laughs for teachers as they worked on the video, from having a teacher actually ordering at Taco Johns when Gilbert showed up to Gilbert pushing another teacher out of Hy-Vee in a shopping cart.

Taylor McGonegle, who teaches second grade at Aurora Heights was one of the teachers who helped edit the video. After first grade teacher Kasey Price pitched the idea, McGonegle said it just snowballed from there.

“It was just really fun because we’d have a full staff meeting that day, it’s just fun team building way to start the school year,” McGonegle said.

During the assembly Monday at Aurora Heights staff member unveiled the video for the first time for students. Teachers timed their introductions to walk in just as the video ended. McGonegle said students were enthusiastic about the video, and it gave them a way to connect with their teachers.

“I think it’s fun for them to see and remember that it was hard for us come back for the summer, but fun at the same time,” McGonegle said. “We’re real people too.”

Contact David Dolmage at 641-792-3121 ext. 6532 or ddolmage@newtondailynews.com