Lehigh Acres has one of those finalists: Elise Leyva, Lehigh Senior High School
Elise Leyva has come full circle at Lehigh Senior High. She was a graduate of the school and AVID tutor before joining the Lightning Family as a math teacher two years ago. Since then she has been working with a team of four to implement an effective professional learning community to tackle intensive algebra. Along with her team, she attended multiple trainings to prepare including AVID Summer Institute, Kagan Mathematics training, and a variety of educational technology trainings. Together her team researched how to better reach struggling at risk math students. As a result, her team improved their algebra EOC passing rate by 17 percentage points last year. Her commitment to teaching and learning makes her an innovative member of Lehigh Senior High.
Every year the District faces the difficult task of naming the recipient of the Teacher of the Year award. What makes it so difficult is the fact that only one of the many devoted and dedicated teachers across the District can be chosen. The District would like to recognize the following five teachers as finalists for this year’s award – they truly embody the District’s vision of being a world-class school system through their work in our schools each day.
The other four finalists are:
Natalie Noel Siler-Hercek, North Fort Myers Academy for the Arts
Mark Jones, South Fort Myers High School
Kerri McCormick, Manatee Elementary School
Laura Jordan, Caloosa Elementary School