Andrews growing its own future teachers

Apr. 6—In just a couple of years, Andrews High School Director of Advanced Academics Krista Scott has created a powerhouse grow your own teacher program and helped make life a little more pleasant for her colleagues.

Her chapter of the Texas Association of Future Educators had 14 of its 17 students this year qualify for national competition, formed a teacher academy and made life a little nicer for teachers on campus.

She had five students reach nationals last year, but the event was cancelled due to COVID. National competition was supposed to be in Florida this year, but it will be virtual instead.

To get to nationals, which is online this year, students had to compete at regionals and then go to state. The top 10 teams in each event in division make it to nationals in Texas, Scott said.

Destany Gift, a 16-year-old sophomore, competed in job interviewing to get to nationals and won the judge's choice award, which was the highest scoring person for the entire state.

"That was pretty exciting as a sophomore," Scott said. "She got a small scholarship for that. Korbin (Scott, her son) was on a team called researching learning challenges. This year, they researched autism in the distance learning environment."

The team 16-year-old junior Gabriela Balderrama made a video that Scott said Balderrama mostly edited herself about the AHS teacher education program.

"There's other events like interactive bulletin board and teacher created materials, ethical dilemma," Krista Scott said.

She added that Korbin Scott, a 17-year-old senior, advanced in two events this year, one of which was exploring administration careers. "And he shadowed our superintendent" for a project on being a superintendent, Scott said.

To get an idea of what the top job entails, Korbin Scott spent a whole day with Andrews ISD Superintendent Bobby Azam.

"We got to drive around the district and he talked to me about what he does and how he runs the school district," Korbin Scott said.

Korbin Scott added that it made him realize how much is involved in running a school district — beyond curriculum and the classroom.

Krista Scott said they also talked about school finance.

"They talked a lot about bonds because he came home and started trying to ask me about school finance," Krista Scott said.

She added that a program started last year enables students to get their associate degree in teaching from Odessa College while they're in high school.

"So Korbin's graduating with his associate's in teaching in May. He can't decide if he wants to go be a teacher or a doctor. We're kind of all over the place right now with him, or even he's looked at school finance or something like that," Krista Scott said.

Gift said her passion is to teach others.

"And with the amazing teachers I've had over the years, they've given me the confidence and the joy that I've had trouble finding looking at stuff that I might want to do in the future. They've helped me realize that this is something that I'm really eager and enthusiastic about and they've helped me find that my passion is teaching."

Babysitting is what started Balderrama down the path to being a teacher and she is being actively recruited.

"Since we started to select our courses for our junior year, I decided to enter into the Principles of Education class period. You had to take that class period to be able to be in RST (Ready, Set, Teach!)for your senior year and just go to different campuses and help out little kids," Balderrama said.

That's how she heard of Texas Association of Future Educators, which has made her even more passionate about teaching.

On the national level, it's called Educators Rising, Krista Scott said.

Korbin Scott said he is in Ready, Set, Teach! and is getting his associate degree in teaching while he's still in high school.

"... You have to take the principles of education class your junior year, and then your senior year, you can take the Ready, Set, Teach! class, which is a double- block class where you spend two periods at an elementary school campus," he said.

Krista Scott said Korbin goes to Underwood Elementary, the fifth grade campus, two periods every day and helps teach in a math classroom.

"I've actually gotten to fully lead lessons and teach. ... It's been really good. I have the teachers always there to help out and my mentor teacher has been really good. It's been very eye-opening to what it's like being in a classroom because you get to see it from the teacher's perspective. It's been really cool to see those kids grow over the course of the year and getting to do that work with them."

Krista Scott said whatever Korbin decides to do she believes he will teach in some capacity.

"If he ends up in the medical field, I can see him go into mentoring or trying to help people. I think the skills they build, especially from TAFE but also in my classroom, really prepare them for multiple fields," Krista Scott said.

Gift said she would like to teach high school agriscience and Balderrama wants to teach kindergarten or third grade.

An initiative the students use to brighten teachers' days is Students Help Inspire Fabulous Teachers.

Each TAFE student selects two to three teachers to help inspire them once a week, or any time that you would want to inspire them — anonymously.

The students deliver small goodies like a teacher's favorite drinks or snacks, Balderrama said.

"The teachers absolutely love it," Krista Scott said. "... I've gotten multiple messages both years from teachers. They'll email me and they'll say, I'm sitting here in tears. I've had a rough day and I just got a sweet note from my TAFE student, or I just found my favorite drink on my desk from my TAFE student. We always try to slip in and deliver when they're not there."

She added that she's been impressed by her students.

"I am pretty blown away. I'm a perfectionist, so I expect my students to do well," Krista Scott said. "I tell them you're not going to compete if you don't have a good project and they made me nervous every year. Last year, I was almost sick to my stomach because we were going into regionals and I didn't know what our competition was going to be like and I didn't know what they prepared. They just keep blowing me away with their projects and they just work really hard. I think because I'm confident in them and I expect a lot of them, it seems like they keep rising to the challenge."