A door opened for Amanda Calhoun.

Now she is opening doors for others.

On July 1, Calhoun started her dream job as principal of the school in her backyard, East Petersburg Elementary.

"It's been awesome," she said. "It's just been a thrill to be able to serve my community in this role as a principal. The whole summer felt like a lot of anticipation for the school year to come, and I was just really excited for the students to get here, so it was great. It was great on Aug. 19 when we had our Sneak Peek. Aug. 20, we got students in, and since then it's just been really, really awesome to serve in this way."

There are always new adventures and opportunities. "What I love about the principalship is that it is different every single day," Calhoun said. "I love the excitement of there's a routine to a school day, but what I will be doing is different moment to moment. Oftentimes, I'll find myself getting into classrooms to see what the instruction looks like. One of the things I love to do this year is I eat lunch with the students, so I'll pop into varying grade levels and just eat with them, see what's going on. It's very exciting and very different from kindergarten through sixth grade, very different conversations."

Calhoun roams the building ready to assist in any way she can. "I love to be able to walk the halls, provide support for teachers in whatever they need or whatever is going on during the day," she said. "I think a catchall for me is I open doors for learning. So if there's a behavioral thing that's going on that needs to be addressed, it's my role to be able to help everyone access learning again. If there's maybe something that needs to be worked out with peers, how can we engage our team to be able to make sure that those students can get back to learning and being their best selves?"

Prior to become principal at East Pete, Calhoun served as an assistant principal at Ephrata High School for seven years. "It's so funny because I think about my last day of school and my previous position," she said. "Students were graduating and taking off into adulthood, and my first day of school here, we had 5-year-olds stepping in for their very first day in school. It is so wonderful to see that full continuum throughout my career, to be able to see now I'm here, where students begin, and I've seen where they need to be at the end."

She has found her calling at East Pete. "I love the energy that elementary brings," Calhoun said. "I think this matches my energy really well. I just think there's just something really special about that discovery element of learning, where everything is new, everything is out of curiosity, and how can we learn more about reading, and how can we learn more about science and math, and how to work together as peers, and how can we dive into music and art and just all these different things?"

Calhoun's daughters attend East Pete Elementary. Amelia is in third grade, and Avery is in first grade. "It's a gift to me," said Calhoun. "Frankly, I do not often see them just because (I'm) trying to make sure that I'm getting around to everyone. But there's a comfort for me of knowing that we're under the same roof. I think they have some interesting perspectives on that. My first-grader thinks it's great. My third-grader is also very excited about it, but she'll keep a little bit more to herself. But they're both very excited that we get to walk to school together."

Calhoun loves living near her workplace. "The other day, I was out mowing my lawn, and this group of kids comes by and says hi, and I just thought that that was really sweet," she said. "It's a really great symbol to show them we all do things to contribute. We all do things to work together." She noted that this mindset is present at East Pete as well. "I don't think there's any task or job that anyone is above or below," she shared. "We all contribute, and we all do what we need to do. Sometimes that means I'm going to jump in and be in a classroom and teaching for a little bit, or sometimes that means I'm going to take a student for a walk so that we can kind of talk some things through and just have a connection moment there."

Originally from the Lehigh Valley, Calhoun earned her undergraduate degree at Millersville University, where she met her now-husband, Andrew. "I always knew I wanted to work in education, and that has led me here," she said. "I stayed in Lancaster County, and now my family's joining me in Lancaster County. (Andrew and I) graduated at the same time, so we were both in the job search avenue; he found a job in Lancaster County. I had been applying primarily in Lancaster, just not knowing where we would land from there. And I ended up staying in Lancaster and just really excited about it and love it. This is where we've found a home for our family, and it's been great."

Calhoun's first job out of college was at Lancaster Catholic High School, where she was a learning support teacher and worked with students with exceptionalities. "From there, I knew I really had this passion for working with teachers, in addition to working with students," she explained.

Calhoun earned her principal degree certification from Penn State and began working as an assistant principal at Ephrata High School in 2018. She plans to remain at East Pete Elementary for a long time.

"This is the dream job for me," said Calhoun. "There's something really, really special to me about being able to serve the community that I live in. When this opportunity came open, it was one of those things that I put a lot of thought and reflection in and decided to throw my name in and see what would happen from there. And I'm just so grateful that Hempfield landed on me to be able to do this role."