Two Cleburne ISD educators will be among the honorees at Thursday’s Region 11 Teacher of the Year Banquet.

                Elementary Teacher of the Year Jennifer Gaston, who serves in the English Learner Lead position at Adams, and Secondary Teacher of the Year Adair Smith, who is the instructor of advanced Culinary Arts students and oversees The Sting Bistro at Cleburne High School, are among 71 candidates in the regional educator of the year competition. Those chosen to represent Region 11 will advance to the state level in the Texas Teacher of the Year selection process.

                “It is a huge honor to be chosen to represent Cleburne ISD at the regional level,” Vicki Rhoades, 2020 Elementary Teacher of the Year said. “We have two amazing, dedicated educators as our candidates in this year’s competition. The old saying, ‘Teaching is not for the faint of heart,’ is true now, more than ever. I can also attest to the fact that there is nothing more gratifying. Teachers are cheerleaders, problem solvers, caregivers, encouragers and educators of the future. Teachers are unsung heroes who can—and do—make a difference.”

                Gaston is a 16-year member of the Adams faculty and has been an English Learner Specialist at the campus for five years. She has taught students at the kindergarten, first and third grade levels and this past year also served as the District’s English/language arts/reading teacher for second graders enrolled in Remote Learning. She was first honored as Adams’ teacher of the year in 2014.

                “My students know I think teaching is the best job in the world,” Gaston said. “Teaching is tough—but the opportunity to teach, even the toughest of kids, is a gift and the greatest responsibility.  I go into each school day with gratitude in my heart, and even after all these years, it is not lost on me that I get to make a difference in someone’s life every day. How powerful is that.”

                Chef Smith is about to begin his second year on the CHS faculty, preceded by 13 years as the lead chef instructor at the Ben Barber Innovation Academy in Mansfield ISD.

                “After 18 years in the restaurant industry as a chef, manager and owner, I was approached to use my experiences and skills in serving as a high school culinary arts instructor,” Smith said. “I admit I wasn’t sure I would like it. At the end of the year, I received a note from a student telling me that because of his experiences in my class, he stayed in school rather than dropping out, which was the direction he was headed. I decided then that working with students was what I was going to do with the rest of my life; I was going to change lives.”

                “Among the standards within the Cleburne ISD Values of Excellence is growth, in learning from successes and failures,” he said. “Sometimes class doesn’t line up with my lesson plan. Sometimes the milk spills, the cake falls and you burn the bacon. As a teacher, I have learned to adapt and be flexible. My students see this and they learn that it is okay to change plans and go a different direction. As a teacher, you have to model that failure will happen—but what you learn from that failure, how you deal with it and grow from it, is what is important.”

                Thursday’s Region 11 Teacher of the Year event, taking place at the Hurst Conference Center, will include representatives from 37 school districts in Cooke, Wise, Denton, Palo Pinto, Parker, Tarrant, Erath, Hood, Somervell and Johnson counties. As regional candidates in the Texas Teacher of the Year competition, participants submitted a professional biography along with answers to a series of response questions, ranging from a project or initiative in which they have been engaged that contributed to the improvement of overall school culture to a major issue in public education today. Candidates were also challenged to state their message, as a spokesperson and representative for teachers and students, were they to ultimately represent Texas in the National Teacher of the Year competition.

                This fall, 40 educators from across the state will be named Regional Teachers of the Year, two per Education Service Center regions. From those candidates, one elementary and one secondary educator will be announced as the 2022 Texas State Teachers of the Year.