Teacher of Year has high expectations
Published: November 9, 2005
The first time Deborah Bennett felt like a successful teacher, she was an elementary school student helping a friend spell her name.
It is a feeling Bennett has likely gotten used to in her 15 years as an educator, four of which she’s spent at Elm Street Elementary.
The sixth-grade math and reading teacher was named the Rome City Schools Teacher of the Year during the system’s annual banquet Tuesday, and it was an honor that left her on the brink of tears.
“I’m just so overwhelmed because there are so many teachers here who are so good,” Bennett said. “It’s hard for me to explain how I won.”
It was not as difficult to explain for her principal, Jo Ann Moss, who lauded Bennett for her unique ability to create real-world applications for her math lessons.
“She’s one of the teachers who will take us to the next level,” Moss said. “She makes no apologies for being a demanding teacher, and she has high expecta-
tions of her students with discipline and with academics.”
This year Bennett took her math class on a field trip to Berry College, a trek that had some of her students initially responding with skepticism.
“They were saying, ‘A math field trip? That can’t be fun,’” Bennett said with a laugh. “By the end, they were asking me if we could stay longer.”
Once at Berry the students rotated stations at different campus buildings where they were faced with a series of complex problems they had to work together to solve before moving on to the next stop.
“A lot of my students are at risk and might not ever go to college,” she said. “So just exposing them to the college campus was great. A lot of them came back saying they wanted to go to Berry.”
Bennett has also been a leader in developing a curriculum that better includes students who aren’t fluent in English. She earned a master’s in ESOL instruction and now trains student teachers on how to make regular content lessons comprehensible to English language learners.
“Each subject, like math and science, has its own language, so it’s important to include the necessary vocabulary,” she said. “And I always have games and hands-on activities that can help engage them.”
As Rome City’s Teacher of the Year, Bennett received a $500 prize from Northwest Georgia Credit Union and will be entered into the state Teacher of the Year competition.
Also honored at the banquet was Southeast Elementary Custodian John Hrubes, who was named the system’s Support Employee of the Year for keeping his school looking “like a five-star hotel,” Superintendent Gayland Cooper said.
“I just go to work and do my job to the best of my ability,” said Hrubes, who worked for 20 years as the manager of a pest control company before moving to Rome.
He said, “Each child’s smile is unique. Just being able to say good morning to them makes it a pleasure every day.”
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