Teachers should have been sunning themselves, traveling and catching up on sleep this summer. And if a teacher is reading this, they’re probably rolling their eyes or laughing at the thought of doing any of those.

    While some surely took advantage of their summer breaks, others were toiling away in the classroom and beyond. For teachers, going back to school can be as exciting – and even more stressful – as it is for their students.

    “Back to school? I’ve never left,” said Denise Timberman, eighth-grade math teacher and math department chair at W.T. Chipman Middle School in the Lake Forest district. Timberman was busy at a four-day conference that started the day after school let out for the summer, and since then she’s been working on lesson plans, re-decorating and filling in for other math teachers while they were at a conference.

    This will be the first year Lake Forest is involved in the Vision 2015 plan and Timberman, who has taught for eight years, is on that committee, so that’s been keeping her busy as well.

    “It’s all about student achievement,” she said. “What will help these students do better.”

    The story’s similar for ninth-grade teacher Mike Sampere at Polytech High School.

    “There’s a big mistaken notion that teachers are off for 10 weeks in the summer,” he said.

    Sampere was reading — reviewing the sticky notes he left for himself throughout the year regarding changes he wanted to make. He was busy physically changing his classroom, working with his team teacher and planning. When he wasn’t in the building, he was doing research online. And like all the teachers, he was in meetings. Lots and lots of meetings.

    “You name it, we have meetings on it,” he said.

    The fun part comes when he gets a first look at his roster of students. It’s like Christmas. He gets to see what former students’ siblings he has, and how many students total he’ll be responsible for.

    It’s either a moment of relief, or one that has the longtime social studies teacher tearing his hair out.

    Either way, that first day with students in the seats is a thrill.

    “I’m a 20-year veteran and I still get butterflies,” he said.

    For Lisa Enright, fourth-grade teacher at South Dover Elementary, things haven’t changed much since she was a student awaiting the first day.

    “I’m just like a kid. I can’t sleep the night before,” she said.

    Enright has been busy stocking up on supplies at summer sales and picking up last-minute things in Lowe’s, then carting them over to her “High School Musical”-themed classroom.

    As of Monday her room looked ready to go, with books set neatly on shelves, new posters on the walls, crayons and Kleenex boxes still with their wrappers on lining the cubbies of a wall.

    Earlier in the summer, Enright participated in the Democracy Project’s Institute for Teachers through the University of Delaware, where she met with the state’s elected officials and learned how to engage students in government. One of the things she’s most excited about is passing that information along to her students.

    Caesar Rodney High School history teacher Tameka Williams is a veteran at the summer prep process. She’s been doing it for 12 years now and is using that experience to help first-year teacher Leigh Askin get set for the year.

    Both teachers have been gearing up for the day when students start filing in.

    Williams has been making rules for the classroom, getting syllabi ready, setting procedures and more. She said one of her most important duties comes during orientation when she puts on her “helpful hat.” The payoff comes if she’s lucky enough to get those students in her 10th-grade classes a year later.

    “Wow, were you the kid that couldn’t figure out where they were going?”

    That’s a common and exciting reaction for Williams.

    For Askin, setting up her first classroom, lesson planning and researching how to best reach her students has been daunting. And rewarding.

    “I’ve really enjoyed creating my lessons, and thinking about how my students are going to perform, what they’re going to like,” she said.

    What the ninth- and 10th-grade history teacher is really looking forward to is getting into history with students.

    That excitement over actually teaching was what fueled all the teachers during the road back to school.

    “I always wanted to be a teacher, my whole life,” Sampere said. “If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.”