By Cathy Free, The Washington Post, June 2, 2021 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

For 23 years, Tylan Bailey arrived at Hightower Elementary in Doraville, Ga., at 5:30 a.m. before the sun rose to get the school ready for nearly 600 students.

As head custodian at the Atlanta-area school, he turned on lights, mopped hallways, vacuumed classrooms and “cleaned anything you can imagine cleaning,” he said.

He started working at Hightower shortly after he graduated from high school and had put off thoughts of going to college, he said. At the time, he was a teen father with a new daughter and bills to pay.

But four years ago, as he approached 40, Bailey began wondering what the rest of his life might look like. He quietly had a dream of his own: to become a public schoolteacher.

Click here to read the full article from the Washington Post.

Also,

Click here to view the full story from CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell.

TRiGroup’s Advice: Get a box of tissue before watching the video.

AND, more importantly, use this as the inspiration we all need to cherish the people in and around our school communities. If you’re struggling to get teachers to fill positions, encourage the people who are already in your community to become teachers.