FELLSMERE — Eleven-year teaching veteran Jody Houston, of Fellsmere Elementary, was crowned the 2014 Teacher of the Year last night in front of her peers, students and family. In shock, she beamed as the crown was placed on her head.
“We have children who come to school every day with a joy to learn and they have no idea that they inspire us every day,” Houston told the audience.
Houston, a speech language pathologist, beat out Fifth grade single gender boys teacher Sara Murto of Sebastian Elementary, Eighth-grade math teacher Karah Widick of Sebastian River Middle, Band Director Ashby Goldstein of Gifford Middle, and 10th grade English teacher Kerri Wall of Sebastian River High.
Houston has 52 students in her caseload and works with a team handling 62 in total, determining if their command of speech is a matter of poor articulation or lack of understanding the English language itself.
Earlier in the school year, teachers nominated from each school made presentations about their classroom work to a scoring committee. The top 5 finishers were then asked to answer more questions and to have a class session videotaped.
Houston told VeroNews.com earlier this month that she had every intention of going into the medical field – not teaching. She was going to go into physical therapy. Instead, she wound up merging medicine with teaching by becoming a speech language pathologist.
“It’s just as challenging as in the medical field,” Houston said.
What she is finding is that more children – regardless of their ethnicity – are struggling with basic language skills, often because they spend too much time playing videogames, watching TV or playing on the computer and not enough time verbally communicating with those around them.
She said the struggle is getting children to do more than just read – they need to comprehend what they’re reading.
“I can read Spanish, but I don’t necessarily know what it means,” Houston said, using herself as an example.
Growing up, Houston attended Osceola Elementary School – before it was a magnet – and Beachland Elementary. She went to Gifford Middle School and was a member of the first class to go through the Freshman Learning Center at Vero Beach High School – class of 1983.
Upon graduating, Houston left Vero Beach and had no plans to return.
“They would have to pay me a million bucks!” Houston said of coming back to Vero Beach.
She was gone for 11 years, then the attack on the World Trade Center happened and she wanted to be closer to friends and family.
Houston returned and found work with the Indian River County School District, where she has been a teacher for 11 years.
“They say it takes a village to raise a child,” Houston said in accepting her Teacher of the Year 2014 title. “It took a village to raise this educator.”