#DocMarshallStrong: Rock Hill teacher inspires education, wellness

It is Julie Marshall’s favorite time of year – back to school.

The award-winning English and language arts teacher is excited to begin the school year at Saluda Trail Middle School with Thelma, her new kidney, Louise, her new pancreas, and her message of health and wellness.

As her one-year double transplant anniversary on Aug. 26 draws near, Marshall continues to battle a CMV infection and other health conditions, but is determined to be in the classroom where teachers, parents and students all agree she belongs.

“I don’t consider this a job – it’s my mission field,” said Marshall, 55.

As a child, Marshall accompanied her grandmother into high poverty areas of Savannah, Ga., to organize backyard reading clubs and Bible study groups. Since then, Marshall has worked with “at-risk populations” and credits her feisty grandmother, Louise, for her tenacity.

Marshall fosters a family environment of trust, respect, caring and personal responsibility in her classroom while incorporating other school subjects and current events into her lessons.

She has two children, but feels like she has raised 2,000. Once you step into the A114 classroom, you are family, she said.

“Every child can learn,” Marshall said. “They learn in my class, and they accomplish so much.”

Marshall was named the Rock Hill School District’s middle school winner in The Herald’s annual Favorite Teacher Contest, nominated by student Kyla Adina Eloi.

The love Marshall felt last year from Saluda Trail was overwhelming – from a pep-rally style homecoming to welcome her back in October to a community health and wellness fair held in her honor in May.

Students and colleagues made #DocMarshallStrong T-shirts and created a GoFundMe.com account to raise money to help her with medical bills.

After the first four days of school, Marshall, who struggled with diabetes for many years, was called to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston to undergo the double transplant. Because Marshall focuses on relationships, it was frustrating to leave her students so soon.

“My team worked so hard to keep me there,” said Marshall, who corresponded through cards, letters and emails with students. Teachers would visit her after school.

She was out of the classroom until October, but had to continue going to Charleston each week for labs.

Her body had a tough time, her kidney gave her problems, and it was difficult to accept that a life had to end so she could live. She hopes to meet the organ donor’s family one day to thank them in person.

“As a recipient, I have a responsibility to my donor to pay it forward, just as she did,” Marshall said. “Hence my passion to make a difference, to change lives, to spread love and to be a blessing to others. We cannot control the hand we have been dealt in life, but each one of us can control how we play it.”

On April 1, Marshall was transported by ambulance to MUSC having contracted CMV, a sometimes fatal virus for transplant patients. She missed three weeks of school, and had to take chemotherapy for the rest of the school year.

Her sister came to school each day during Marshall’s lunch period to give her treatment.

She didn’t keep it a secret from her students who were both concerned and curious. She turned it into a project-based learning unit, teaching seventh grade science standards on the human body systems that concluded with the May 17 community health and wellness fair that 400 people attended.

“She took a situation of health concerns and kept a positive attitude throughout the entire illness, transplant and recovery process,” said Brenda Campbell, Saluda Trail’s principal. “It was sometimes unbelievable how she craved working with her students when she was obviously having serious setbacks and dealing with daily chemo.”

It has been a long road for Marshall – from her Type 1 diabetes diagnosis 23 years ago, to her renal failure that began five years ago, to the dialysis that kept her regularly hooked up to a machine the 14 months leading up to the double transplant. She waited several years for the organs.

She inspires her students every day, said Ally Ferguson, a rising eighth-grader, who enjoyed the challenge of linking current topics with past events in U.S. history in Marshall’s class last year.

“She’s compassionate and caring. She will put someone else’s needs before her own,” said Ferguson. “She is also very humble and is positive about every situation that is thrown her way.”

All students respond to Marshall, said Campbell, especially struggling students and those who are unmotivated. They come back years later to thank her.

“She touches their lives on a level outside just the academic classroom,” Campbell said. “She knows their passions and their future goals. She gets to know their families and struggles and celebrations that affect their success in her classroom.”

Marshall’s family of students extends to the nights she teaches future educators at Winthrop University. Research and communication thrive in her non-typical classroom.

Though she is highly decorated with state and national teaching awards and a doctorate, the biggest honor Marshall said she has experienced as a teacher were the kind words written by Kyla.

“That child has a beautiful spirit,” Marshall said. “She did it at home, on her own time, and had her grandmother take her to turn it in. That’s what it’s all about – being a blessing in a child’s life.”

This story was originally published August 15, 2015 at 8:02 PM with the headline "#DocMarshallStrong: Rock Hill teacher inspires education, wellness."