Michele Cornett • 14th year of teaching, Veterans Park Elementary, Grade 4   

"For me, teaching is like completing a jigsaw puzzle. First, the teacher must examine all the different needs of her students. These are the unique pieces to the puzzle. Then, she must find ways to organize and integrate instructional groups to meet those needs, much like interlocking the puzzle pieces together. Finally, she bonds them together in a classroom with a strong sense of community, with each student feeling as important to the class as the next. The puzzle is now complete with each of its unique pieces joined together as one."

Jaynae Laine • 8th year of teaching, Breckinridge Elementary, Primary 1-2 

"Today they read for tomorrow they lead!"

William Parris • 20th year of teaching, Linlee Elementary, Music  

"I hope that every student that enters my classroom leaves with the experience of appreciating music in some capacity. Whether the experience be in dance, drama, or music in general, I just want each to be able to appreciate the fine quality and elements that each area has to offer. I believe that every individual holds some special musical quality inside of him. It's just that maybe that special quality hasn't been touched yet, or had the opportunity of someone captivating it and bringing it out. I hope to be that someone, and if I can reach and plant those important musical attributes within each at an early age, then hopefully those great experiences will be everlasting ones! What one has in his heart and soul must come out! That is the reason for music!"

Favorite Quotes: "It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge." 

—Albert Einstein 

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." 

—Henry B. Adams

Sara Szwilski • 18th year of teaching, Maxwell Elementary, Grade 1  

"I believe that all children benefit from learning other language. As a Spanish teacher at Maxwell Elementary, I take pride and joy seeing children 'blossom' as a result of their exposure to language and cultures of many different Spanish-speaking countries. Also they learn to respect and appreciate people of other ethnicities."

'He who does not know another language does not know his own.'" 

—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe