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.<\/p>\n
The four teachers, who each first won top honors at their schools, now will represent their districts at Florida\u2019s annual teacher-of-the-year competition this summer.<\/p>\n
Osceola County<\/p>\n
When temperatures dipped below freezing in Central Florida this past weekend, Kyndall Brown went to her closed school.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Brown said being an agriculture teacher is a \u201c24\/7, 365 days out of the year job,\u201d and she likes it that way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just consistently always doing something for either my animals, my kids, my classroom, the fair, or something of that nature,\u201d said Brown, who has been teaching for four years.<\/p>\n
Before becoming a teacher, Brown wore a lot of different hats. She worked as a meat inspector in Louisiana \u2013\u2013 where she literally wore a hard hat \u2013\u2013 and as a sales representative selling equine and cattle feed.<\/p>\n
Those jobs didn\u2019t feel quite right, she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t find purpose in what I was doing every single day,\u201d Brown said. \u201cI felt like I was just running through the motions.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer 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,\u201d said Osceola Superintendent Mark Shanoff.<\/p>\n
Orange County<\/p>\n
Alexandra Figueroa has a secret helper in her kindergarten classroom: Elma, a handmade puppet nicknamed for her similarity to Elmo.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Figueroa used the puppet to start a conversation with a child who rarely spoke, encouraging the student to use her words.<\/p>\n
Using Elma and other strategies helped Figueroa decrease discipline referrals for peer conflicts by 40% in her classroom at Village Park Elementary School.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s having fun as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot give what you don\u2019t have,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Jennifer Calderon, who has a child at Village Park Elementary, described Figueroa as \u201cthe light\u201d of the school. \u201cShe\u2019s always giving advice, coaching every student,\u201d Calderon said in a video.<\/p>\n
Figueroa sees the potential in all her students, who she refers to as scholars.<\/p>\n
\u201cA scholar is someone that you know that they\u2019re going to go to college and you know that they\u2019re going to pursue a career and they\u2019re going to be successful in that career,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Her students might just be in kindergarten, but Figueroa wants them to know she believes in their future.<\/p>\n
Lake County<\/p>\n
The day of her county\u2019s award ceremony, Michelle Deesi\u2019s third-grade students gave her a pep talk before the big night.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be you,\u201d she recalled them saying.<\/p>\n
Their encouragement was just what Deesi practices in the classroom at Sorrento Elementary School.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s by asking about their day or just listening to them.<\/p>\n
Principal Nicole Brouhard said Deesi \u201cdedicates extraordinary time, patience, and care\u201d to her students and their success.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe 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,\u201d Brouhard said in a recommendation letter for Deesi.<\/p>\n
Seminole County<\/p>\n
When Christie Rey began working as a teacher for students with disabilities she had to adapt.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of knew what I\u2019d be getting myself into, but there\u2019s so much more to being a developmental teacher that I had to learn on the fly,\u201d Rey said.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s equally meaningful.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a child can get over to the cafeteria and sit there for lunch, it\u2019s an amazing experience for us\u2026 if they can identify their name and spell it and say it. It\u2019s just those things that make it very rewarding,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
When she saw a vacancy at Geneva Elementary, the school her children attended, she took a shot. Now, she\u2019s been teaching for three years.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cmore visible\u201d and to make them feel included. Last year, she organized an event with the Special Olympics for her students.<\/p>\n
Geneva Elementary Principal Keith Erickson said Rey\u2019s philosophy focuses on \u201ctrue inclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is a passionate advocate for her students\u2019 participation in the school community, proactively seeking opportunities to integrate her class into general education settings,\u201d Erickson said in a recommendation letter for Rey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four dedicated teachers, the kind who make extra efforts to include and engage with all their students, won…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[113,28,30,29,2174,114,266,115,1335,1014,109],"class_list":{"0":"post-148019","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-education","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-headlines","11":"tag-florida-news","12":"tag-lake-county","13":"tag-latest-headlines","14":"tag-local-news","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-orange-county","17":"tag-seminole-county","18":"tag-social"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}