April 2014

A Message from Florida’s Teacher of the Year...

Dorina Sackman, 2014 Florida Department of Education/Macy’s Florida Teacher of the Year

This past weekend, I was visitgng my parents in De�ary, Florida, for Palm Sunday/ !s I was trying diligently to teach my niece and nephew how to make a bloomed rose from the palms, there was a knock at the door/ !s my 12-year-old nephew opened it he yelled, “No way! !re you SERIOUS!” in the manner only a tween in 2014 could/ To my surprise, in walked my sister and her family/ “What are you DOING here?” was the constant questgon among the laughs and cries of utter surprise as my sister, her husband and two children came running into the arms of each family member/ “We drove down from Connecticut yesterday. It’s official. We’re moving to Florida in !ugust.” !s my mother covered her mouth, then wiped her tears of joy, she attempted with her cracked voice to ask, “What was the deciding factor?” Looking at me with tears she said, “If my baby sister was chosen to be Florida’s Teacher of the Year and a National Finalist, I can no longer question Florida’s Public Education System. So I visited elementary schools and saw how far Florida education has come which solidified our decision. My children will be going to Heathrow Elementary School in !ugust and I couldn’t be more satisfied with the teachers and their enthusiasm towards education.”

Of course I was ecstatgc to know that my entgre family would finally be permanently reunited in the Sunshine State but it was the reason that set my heart ablaze/ “I couldn’t be more satisfied with the teachers and their enthusiasm towards education.” Those words resonated with me so much that I shared them in my presentatgon at a pre-service teacher workshop at �arry University in Miami Shores/ These inspiring future educators were excited to be “that” teacher/ You know, the one that inspires not only a child but their parents/ I went on to explain about the giffm that becoming a teacher is to oneself and to others/

In This Issue:

Teacher of the Year cont. 2

Outstanding Chapter Winners 3

Winston Park K-8 4 Melbourne HS 4

Island Coast HS 5 Santa Fe HS 5 Ojus Elementary 5

Cocoa HS 6

2015 State Conference 7 Contact Information 7

!s I tell senior interns who do their practgcum in my classroom, there are two types of teachers/ First, there is the innate educator, born to educate since day one/ It is a predestgned positgon and they are called to do so/ You know who you are - the proud college students whp use fancy educatgonal acronyms to explain your dreams and goals as you take the steps to become a teacher/ Who me? My major? ECE. !nd me? ECE with a focus on ESE. !nd me? Secondary Ed with a focus on STEM. You knew your path by at least junior year in high school and even volunteered in other schools to not only satgsfy your community service requirements but your thirst for your passion to teach/ I say �ravo to you, future educator/ I know how you feel/ I, too, was the innate teacher/ When I wasn’t a 6-year-old, wrapped in a white bed sheet with a toilet bowl seat over my head playing “!ngels” with my brother and sister, I was writgng all over my Dr/ Seuss “Snow” book, making assignments for my sister and playing Miss �eadle or Miss �rabtree from my generatgon’s most beloved television educators/ The latter became a part of me. teaching, leading, educatgng, training from childhood to womanhood and no doubt, becoming Florida’s Teacher of the Year has helped me inspire, encourage and motgvate others to do the same/

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A Message from Florida’s Teacher of the Year...

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Now, there is also another type of teacher - the “always wanted to be a teacher” teacher/ It is the person who has another career path in mind, but somehow, that path leads to a dead end/ Most of the tgme, it isn’t known that there is “no outlet” to this professional road, rather a result of the economy, a lack of interest by the individual or need in the working world, among other reasons beyond one’s control/ However, in the back of the heads of the “Type 2 Teacher,” they always say, “I think I’d like to try and be a teacher. I think about it a lot but don’t know. Something is holding me back. Is it the smaller paycheck? Is it what others will say? It is just that I feel it is a “fall back” profession and am I doing the right thing?” !ll these thoughts go into one’s head as they fight the truth within their hearts0that “Type 2” teachers are really “Type Onezers” all along! So, Teacher 1/ Teacher 2/ Listen to your heart and do it/ I’ll help you find your way0

!s altruistgc and cliché as it may seem, I truly feel deep down, as a teacher, I am making a difference/ Each year I have 120 at-risk youth (well, I call my babies “at-promise”) from ages 11-13, from all around the world, coming to me at the most crucial tgme in their young minds/ I love making it my mission to empower them to empower themselves/ I love that my classroom is the world - a diverse and beautgful United Natgons where not only do my children learn the English language, but the language of acceptance, compassion, trust, teamwork, friendship, independence, freedom of expression, and hard work/ Most importantly, they learn who they are and a glimpse of the greatness they are to become/ You see, each child is different, adding to the beautgful mosaic with their unique color and personality/ !nd this delightful decoupage of difference is the new face of the !merican classroom/ It is a piece of artwork where the craffmsmen are the teachers !ND the students/ No matter the subject matter, English, Math, Science or History- Music, !rt, World Language or Technology0if you teach it, they will learn/

If you teach it with passion, they will learn to be passionate/

If you reach them with compassion they will become compassionate/

!s we reach a pivotal tgme in our field, one where our mission is to elevate our profession to the level of integrity that it deserves in our !merican society, it is the perfect tgme to speak of the beauty of this profession to the young and more seasoned individuals contemplatgng answering the call from within/ !lthough I am passionate about travelling the state and natgon to do this, I contgnue to encourage Florida District Teachers of the Year to be ambassadors for their areas and speak at high schools, teach-ins, work fairs, colleges, community events and religious instgtutgons so as to inspire others to become part of the community of educators who truly have the future in front of them/ I contgnue to encourage teachers to use social media and blogs to assist in elevatgng our rewarding roles as educators/ The more we share our amazing stories, our children’s stories and their successes out in the world of Twitter, blogs, Facebook, Instagram, teaching websites, Google+ and vlogs, we are ignitgng the flame in the bellies of many that want to see change in their lives but also to �E the change in the lives of others/ Moreover, we need to light the fire inside the young men who were transformed by a teacher or an educatgonal experience so they may return to their place of transformatgon and growth and pay it forward by doing the same for our young men of promise/ These incredible future educators hold the key to closing the achievement gap/ Therefore, it is up to us to find these fine men and lead them to that door, where, with that key unlock the opportunitges for so many children hungry for knowledge and thirsty for fulfilling dreams/ We must extend our arms out further for us to meet those unsure about reaching out so they may grasp on, hold tgghtly, connect with us, and take our hand as we guide them to what they were called to do0teach/

In Heathrow Elementary, my sister observed a mélange of teachers, seasoned and new, working together to ensure academic and social success for all students/ She saw bright-eyed beautgful young women and men ready to answer a concerned parent’s questgons about the Florida Standards, testgng, giffmed, social interactgon, differentgated instructgon and a teacher’s role in the community/ My sister leffm a Florida public school, not only pleased with enrolling her students there, but also questgoning her own future as she starts over in this beautgful place we all love, Florida/ “These teachers are amazing,” my sister said on her third day visitgng other schools in the area/ She looked at me, squinted her eyes in a curious manner letting me know that I was supposed to interpret her next statement into something more than it was, “Man, Dee/you really love what you do, huh?” I didn’t need to answer, and she was right/ I understood exactly what she was inferring/

!s my nephew proudly presented her with a frayed palm “flower,” my sister smiled, opened her laptop, took a deep cleansing breath, and double clicked on a file that said///resume/

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Pinecrest Elementary School and Naples High

School Win Outstanding Chapter Award! The FFE! �hapter at Pinecrest Elementary in Miami has been actgve with its 100 members/ Students in the 4th and 5th grade are divided into Session I and II where they are paired with a buddy and shadow a teacher for half the year/ Teacher shadowing includes reading to primary students, creatgng bulletgn boards, assistgng on the playground, and helping with student projects/ This year the Pinecrest Elementary FFE! �hapter sponsored their school’s Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundatgon Fundraiser and Walk-!-Thon/ Fiffmh Grade FFE! Member Sophia Hopkins, also a Type I diabetgc, jointly with her FFE! sponsors gave an informatgonal assembly to grades 2nd through 5th/ This awareness sparked a successful fundraiser where six thousand dollars was raised to support this cause, and ended with a Walk-!-Thon that included actgvity statgons and an emphasis on wellness/ Keep up the good work Pinecrest Elementary!

!s a young, 3-year-old chapter, Naples High School FFE! is proud of the many accomplishments we have made to our school and community/ NHS FFE! dedicates its tgme to recognizing the hard work of our school's teachers/ Through Teacher of the Month celebratgons and special recognitgon of our awesome faculty, we show our teachers that they are true Naples High (GOLDEN( Eagles! Our members really enjoy their �uddy Time with fellow students with intellectual disabilitges and students with !utgsm Spectrum Disorders, as we join them on Friday for lunch at the mall food court! Within our community, we volunteer our tgme on Saturday mornings to help children and families in need/ We love the themed Family Literacy Days at Grace Place, a local literacy organizatgon, where we read, play games and do craffms with hundreds of ESOL families! !dditgonally, 45 of our members serve weekly as Teen Trendsetters Reading Mentors to struggling 2nd grade readers at two local elementary schools, Lake Park and Poinciana/ This year we have volunteered over 1,260 hours to our mentees! WOW!! During the winter holidays, NHS FFE! can be found helping out around town as Volunteer Elves for the �ity of Naples/ Our very own Mr/ and Mrs/ �laus are well-known for their story tgme and Snowflake �raffms! Naples High School “GOLDEN” Eagles future educators0Helping to Make �hildren’s Dreams �ome True!

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Winston Park K-8 Center, Miami-Dade County Sophia �lanco, 4th Grade Student

Drop and Shop! Have you ever wanted to play with your friends, eat popcorn, have pizza, and watch a movie while doing arts and craffms? Well, we did all of that right here in school/ It was called Drop and Shop!!

FFE! members cared for the children while their parents were �hristmas shopping/ We also read �hristmas stories while the kids listened/ They had lots of fun and so did we, the FFE! members/

!t the end of that night, we all cleaned up and listened to �hristmas tunes/ !ffmer all our fun, one by one all the kids leffm/ !s we said goodbye, we heard “what fun we had/” Hope you can join us for another one!!

Melbourne High School, Brevard County Vanessa Doan and Katge �oleman, �hapter !dvisors

Melbourne High School FFE! was so inspired affmer attending the FFE! conference in January that we’ve been in overdrive! Our first meetgng following the conference included writgng thank you notes, recapping events, going over our competgtgon rubrics, and jotting down notes for next year/ !t the next meetgng, we had delicious snacks (food is always a staple at our meetgngs) and caught up on the last three years of our scrapbook/ We hosted a table at our school’s 9th grade orientatgon night, where we presented our chapter display board, showed off our newly updated scrapbook and handed out candy/ We recruited quite a few students who we will follow-up with in the new school year/ Now, we’re getting ready for a “meet ) greet” to encourage current students to sign up for FFE!/ We created a Prezi presentatgon that will go over our club’s mis-sion and actgvitges/ If students want to attend our last few meetgngs of the school year, they can help us decorate for Teacher !ppreciatgon Week in May, and then hopefully, those kids will come back for fun in the ’14-15 school year!

Senior boys and Mrs/ Doan going over the scrapbook layout 9th grade girls with FE!-decorated cupcakes

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Island Coast High School, Lee County �ongratulatgons! Island �oast High School Future Educators of !merica has been selected by Staples’ �ape �oral store for a $500 grant as part of a campaign to encourage local community engagement/ They are very excited to have received this grant and will use it to send students to the 2015 FFE! �onference/ Way to go Island �oast High School!

Santa Fe High School, Alachua County !my �arry, �hapter !dvisor

Here at Santa Fe High School, what we lack in membership, we make up for in our dedicatgon to educatgon/ We are tgny but mighty/

To kick-start our clubs actgve involvement in the school, we began around Halloween-tgme selling candy-filled “Ghost-grams,” a long-standing traditgon, in an effort to fund the 2013 State �onference in Orlando/ Fast forward to November, our next fundraiser involved the sale of delicious candy apples at the big Homecoming football game/ Our most recent endeavor was initgatgng the first annual St/ Patrick’s Day Pie-!-Teacher event where students can enter a raffle to throw a pie at the teacher of their choice/

!side from fundraising, throughout the school year we have partgcipated in job-shadowing at various schools in the district/ We also became �PR/!ED certgfied and sponsored a �lack History Month “Quote-of-the-Day” by famous !frican-!mericans on the topic of educatgon/

In January, three of our members attended the State �onference/ This was our chapter’s first year attending and we learned a lot and enjoyed interactgng with members from other chapters/ We are looking forward to attending next year and partgcipatgng in (and hopefully winning!) one or more of the competgtgons/

Small but growing, the Santa Fe High School FFE! chapter is making great strides to promote community involvement, service and educatgon/

Ojus Elementary School, Miami-Dade County Sonya Gardner, �hapter !dvisor

The Ojus Elementary chapter of the Florida Future Educators of !merica �lub contgnues to embrace the slogan, “We �an Make a Difference If We Try/” The club members caught the spring fever to shower cheer throughout the neighborhood/ The students made spring baskets filled with toiletries to share with the residents of Regents Park Rehabilitatgon �enter located in North Miami �each, Florida/ The members also entertained the residents in song, dance and a joyful spirit/ What a joy it was to “spring up” happiness and share a warm smile in someone else’s life! The Future Educators also took the tgme to sponsor spring grams around the school and offer notes of “Lucky �harms” for our tgreless teachers leaving for spring break for a much-deserved rest/

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Cocoa High School, Brevard County !thena Litras, Vice President

�ocoa High School FFE! �lub has done many community service projects this semester, many of them involve helping children/ !t our high school we have visited the “Tiger cubs,” our in-house head start program/ We get hands on experience and learn how the teachers work with the “cubs” and the right procedures to take when caring for and teaching the students/ We really connect with the children/ It is a great way to learn patgence and understanding/

�eing a club all about teaching, we appreciate our teachers for all they have done/ During Teacher !ppreciatgon Week, the �ocoa High School FFE! �lub plans on giving out apples to each teacher with a little special quote on the stem, so they know how much they are truly appreciated and how much we care about them/

While all of this has been going on, we have also tackled a project that benefits �rosswind’s Youth Services/ This year will be the 16th !nnual Great �revard Duck Race/ We have volunteered to help with the fundraiser/ This fundraiser helps teens going through difficult tgmes/ Teens with no other alternatgve can turn to this facility for care, comfort and protectgon/ �rosswind’s provides services to thousands of young people and families each year, through programs designed to strengthen families and offer young people the support and opportunitges they need to succeed/ Wantgng to help this amazing cause, we jumped right on board with the fundraiser/ !ll of the �ocoa High School FFE! �lub have been selling, selling, selling these ducks! This fundraiser also benefits our FFE! �lub/ With every duck we sell, we raise one dollar for our club/ With the money raised we plan on buying �ocoa High School FFE! �lub shirts so that we can further recruit members to our club/ Since the beginning of the school year we have doubled our membership and would like to contgnue recruitgng/ With this being our first year of FFE!, we have worked tremendously hard and in this last semester have accomplished so much more than expected/

Congratulations to All of the 2013-2014

Outstanding Chapter Winners! Winston Park K-8 �enter, Dade �ounty Heritage High School, �revard �ounty

Ojus Elementary School, Dade �ounty St/ !ugustgne High School, St/ Johns �ounty

Nautglus Middle School, Dade �ounty Felix Varela Senior High School, Dade �ounty

Pinecrest Elementary, Dade �ounty Naples High School, �ollier �ounty

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A Final Hello from the President Deanna �reckenridge, 2013-2014 FFE! President

!s the year draws to a close I can’t help but reflect on how amazing the tgme has been/ �eing FFE! President has been one of the best experiences of my life as I have had the opportunity to be involved with a group who wants to promote and work to better educatgon by becoming involved in it/ I will forever cherish the experience FFE! has given to me and I plan to contgnue to be an actgve member in college (FSU- Go Noles!)/ I encourage all of you to contgnue to want to make a difference in a child's life - as a teacher, coach, mentor, or maybe even a parent one day/ Thank you all for your support and encouragement and I can't wait to see you at the State �onference next year!!!

2015 FFEA State Conference Next year’s conference theme will be Teachers Make the Impossible Possible! Start thinking about your Roll �all and Display �oards now because there will be lots of great competgtgon/ �onference details will be available at the very beginning of the school year/ New rubrics will be available for all of the competgtgons when you return from summer break/ Take the theme and make it your chapter’s own!

Contact FFE!: !bbey Stewart, FFE! State �oordinator Florida Department of Educatgon 325 West Gaines Street, Suite 124 Tallahassee, Florida 32399-0400 1-800-TE!�H-FL

Facebook/com/FLFutureEducators

Contact Your Officers:

John !lvarez, President. john/alvarez001@mymdc/net

Kelsey �lapham, Vice President. kelseyclapham@gmail/com

Sabrina Mae Hope, Secretary. pink/say/say@gmail/com