Four dedicated teachers, the kind who make extra efforts to include and engage with all their students, won Teacher of the Year honors in recent Central Florida ceremonies.
The four teachers, who each first won top honors at their schools, now will represent their districts at Florida’s annual teacher-of-the-year competition this summer.
Osceola County
When temperatures dipped below freezing in Central Florida this past weekend, Kyndall Brown went to her closed school.
Her mission: Keep the plants and animals from the agriculture class warm. She turned on heat lamps, put tarps over chicken coops and brought all the plants inside.
Brown said being an agriculture teacher is a “24/7, 365 days out of the year job,” and she likes it that way.
“I’m just consistently always doing something for either my animals, my kids, my classroom, the fair, or something of that nature,” said Brown, who has been teaching for four years.
Before becoming a teacher, Brown wore a lot of different hats. She worked as a meat inspector in Louisiana –– where she literally wore a hard hat –– and as a sales representative selling equine and cattle feed.
Those jobs didn’t feel quite right, she said. “I didn’t find purpose in what I was doing every single day,” Brown said. “I felt like I was just running through the motions.”
Teaching is the opposite of that. Working at Harmony Middle School allows her to build connections with students and introduce them to one of her childhood passions: animals.
“Her commitment to inspiring future leaders and preserving the agricultural heritage of Osceola County makes her an outstanding representative of our district and the teaching profession,” said Osceola Superintendent Mark Shanoff.
Orange County
Alexandra Figueroa has a secret helper in her kindergarten classroom: Elma, a handmade puppet nicknamed for her similarity to Elmo.
Figueroa, who has been a teacher in Orange County Public Schools for 20 years, uses Elma as a learning tool and to help correct behavior.
Figueroa used the puppet to start a conversation with a child who rarely spoke, encouraging the student to use her words.
Using Elma and other strategies helped Figueroa decrease discipline referrals for peer conflicts by 40% in her classroom at Village Park Elementary School.
As an educator, Figueroa said her priority is creating a classroom environment where students feel not only safe, but engaged. Her rule of thumb is to make sure she’s having fun as well.
“You cannot give what you don’t have,” she said.
Jennifer Calderon, who has a child at Village Park Elementary, described Figueroa as “the light” of the school. “She’s always giving advice, coaching every student,” Calderon said in a video.
Figueroa sees the potential in all her students, who she refers to as scholars.
“A scholar is someone that you know that they’re going to go to college and you know that they’re going to pursue a career and they’re going to be successful in that career,” she said.
Her students might just be in kindergarten, but Figueroa wants them to know she believes in their future.
Lake County
The day of her county’s award ceremony, Michelle Deesi’s third-grade students gave her a pep talk before the big night.
“It’s going to be you,” she recalled them saying.
Their encouragement was just what Deesi practices in the classroom at Sorrento Elementary School.
“I treat them nice. I talk to them nicely. I model to them, and I treat them the way I want them to learn to treat each other,” she said.
Deesi has been teaching for 17 years, but only started teaching third grade four years ago. She said one of the most important aspects of her work is making connections with her 20 students, whether it’s by asking about their day or just listening to them.
Principal Nicole Brouhard said Deesi “dedicates extraordinary time, patience, and care” to her students and their success.
“She approaches her work with unwavering belief in the potential of every child and is deeply committed to ensuring that all students can and will learn,” Brouhard said in a recommendation letter for Deesi.
Seminole County
When Christie Rey began working as a teacher for students with disabilities she had to adapt.
“I kind of knew what I’d be getting myself into, but there’s so much more to being a developmental teacher that I had to learn on the fly,” Rey said.
The job requires a lot of repetition in order for kids to gain certain skills, she said. But while the work is mentally and physically taxing, it’s equally meaningful.
“If a child can get over to the cafeteria and sit there for lunch, it’s an amazing experience for us… if they can identify their name and spell it and say it. It’s just those things that make it very rewarding,” she said.
Before becoming a teacher, Rey was a speech language pathologist. She took night classes in that field while she was in the Navy Reserve and later got her certification.
When she saw a vacancy at Geneva Elementary, the school her children attended, she took a shot. Now, she’s been teaching for three years.
Rey works in a classroom where all the students have significant disabilities, and they do not always interact with mainstream students. But, Rey takes every chance she can to make her students “more visible” and to make them feel included. Last year, she organized an event with the Special Olympics for her students.
Geneva Elementary Principal Keith Erickson said Rey’s philosophy focuses on “true inclusion.”
“She is a passionate advocate for her students’ participation in the school community, proactively seeking opportunities to integrate her class into general education settings,” Erickson said in a recommendation letter for Rey.