— CUMBERLAND — Before Wednesday morning’s annual back-to-school convocation for teachers, instructional aide Robin Everline wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to summer.

Then she heard four former Allegany County students give moving, video-clip accounts of how certain teachers had changed their lives.

• Fort Hill Football Coach Todd Appel was “probably the biggest father figure in my life,” said Jonathan Foster, now a football player and straight-A student at Bethany College in West Virginia.

• The Center for Career and Technical Education’s Deborah Bittinger “took me under her wing and really helped me to further my education,” said Sarah Morton, an FSU graduate who’s now training to be a Maryland State Trooper.

• History teacher Lonnie Nixon “cared about me as a person,” said Michael Martirano, now superintendent of St. Mary’s County Public Schools in Southern Maryland.

• And Allegany High School Band Director Larry Jackson “actually treated me like one of the kids,” said Maja Kazazic, 33, a Bosnian war refugee who came to Cumberland in 1993 after being severely injured in a mortar attack.

“He expected everybody to work hard, know their thing,” said Kazazic, of Palm Harbor, Fla., who made a surprise appearance after her video clip was shown.

“If we were out in the field for 10 or 15 hours, doing band camps, I had to be out there 10 or 15 hours. ... And that’s all I wanted. Larry Jackson just gave me that opportunity to be an ordinary kid. I’m so grateful for that.”

 More than 700 teachers and other school personnel gathered at Fort Hill High School to kick off the 2010-2011 school year, which starts for students on Tuesday. Many wiped away tears after hearing the stories of Foster, Morton, Martirano and Kazazic.

“This really motivates you to get back and get started,” said Everline, an instructional aide at George’s Creek Elementary School, who joined the audience to give standing ovations to each of the four teachers as they took the stage to be honored.

The two-hour program focused on fostering student-teacher relationships, even as technology continues to change how learning takes place in the classroom. For the first time this fall, students will be allowed to bring their own laptops and other technology devices to school.

“It’s still up to the principal and the teacher what the use is,” said Superintendent David Cox. “You still control that. ... It’s about using technology to accelerate the learning process. Nothing takes the place of that teacher and that relationship.”

One of the key ingredients in developing meaningful student-teacher relationships, Cox said, is empathy.

“We don’t need to make excuses for our children because we’re sympathetic to their circumstances,” said Cox, a former band director who started as superintendent here last year.

“We all know very well that some of our children come from far less than desirable home situations. ... To have the ability to put ourselves in another person’s shoes to see the world from their angle — and especially to try to see the world from three feet off the floor as our children see it — is something that’s extremely valuable in developing relationships.”

Kazazic, who travels the country as a speaker in addition to running her own web development company, showed teachers a graphic news account of how the war affected her hometown of Mostar, Bosnia. She was hanging out with five friends in front of her apartment building when a bomb blast killed all of them but her.

“As the smoke cleared I could see my legs, and they were just literally sliced open,” said Kazazic, who received no anesthesia or pain medication when her left leg was amputated above the knee.

“I would look a little bit more and I would see an arm there from one of my friends. And I would look in a little bit bigger circle and I would see my other friend — there was just brain was just dropping out of her head...”

When she arrived here 17 years ago, Kazazic was embraced by the entire Cumberland community, she said. She stayed at Cumberland Memorial Hospital for more than a year, fighting infections.

“One of the things I really wanted to do was go back to school,” said Kazazic, whose family still lives in Cumberland. “That meant that everything was OK, it was a normal life, I was safe.”

In Allegany’s marching band, she played xylophone and other percussion in “the pit.” The experience gave her confidence and a sense of belonging, Kazazic said.

Cox, who also received a surprise video tribute from a former student on Wednesday,  encouraged teachers to stay focused on developing relationships with students.

“You never know what a kind word means to a student who needs it,” Cox said. “You never know what a kind word to a colleague means. It’s that human part that makes the difference. That’s the glue that binds the content. You can’t have a great school or school system without caring relationships and without raising our kids up every day.”

Contact Kristin Harty Barkley at kbarkley@times-news.com