Students at the Limestone County Career Technical Center committed to educate Alabama’s future during a statewide Future Educators’ Signing Day event.

Like an athletic signing day, high school seniors who had chosen to pursue a career in education were recognized Tuesday at schools across Alabama. The initiative is sponsored by the Alabama State Department of Education, the Alabama Education Association and Future Teachers of Alabama as a way of building excitement and reducing teacher shortage in the state.

“Not only are we celebrating those seniors who are ready to take on the challenge of educating the future youth of Alabama, but we are also working to inspire younger students to choose education as a meaningful career,” State Superintendent of Education Eric G. Mackey said in a letter to event coordinators.

Elkmont High School senior Janna Rector was among the students at the tech center who participated in the signing day. Rector has spent the last three years attending the tech center’s teaching and training classes.

In a few weeks, she’ll graduate from high school, something she said both excites and terrifies her, “because this is all I’ve ever known.” Despite the terror, she’s eager to start working on her degree in secondary education at Troy University. She hopes to one day be a history teacher.

“I want to teach ninth and 10th grade, but I wouldn’t be upset if I had to teach 11th or 12th,” Rector said.

Her teachers and principal at Elkmont helped influence her decision to go into education.

“I was inspired from when I was very little to want to be influential to students and kids,” she said. “I always had a hard time with learning and understanding, and the teachers I had were amazing at helping me. I want to be like them for other kids.”

So much so, she wants to come back to Limestone County to teach.

“I want to teach at Elkmont,” Rector said. “I love Bill Tribble. He’s the greatest teacher and principal ever.”