Back to School: NNPS Teacher of the Year offers tips for teachers, students, families
Posted: August 14, 2024
Jessica Reynolds has progressed steadily from new teacher to seasoned veteran, and from asking for help to offering it.
Reynolds, the 2024-2025 Newport News Public Schools Division-Wide Teacher of the Year, is preparing for a new school year along with all of the school division's teachers. She will move from fourth grade lead teacher to fifth grade lead teacher at Kiln Creek Elementary School this fall, and is looking forward to being a voice to represent all NNPS teachers.
Reynolds' mother and aunt are teachers, so she grew up around the education system as she attended Newport News schools and graduated from Heritage High School. After a brief stint studying interior design at Radford University, she decided she needed to be back working with children and transferred to Chowan University to major in elementary education.
After returning home to teach, she has worked in education for 15 years and draws her motivation from impacting students daily.
"For me, it's all about the kids," Reynolds said. "That's what makes me want to come to school, even with all the other stuff going on. They're my kids; they're my babies.
"And I love to see as they grow throughout the year, but also when I see them later on. One of my first groups just graduated this past year, and seeing their pictures and seeing them on Facebook and everything. So a lot of it is about me with the kids and the relationships that I build with my students."
She sees them at school, as well as at events outside of school, and tries to set an example as a role model. That strong bond leads to students working hard to reach her high but attainable standards, according to Reynolds.
Pre-planning, keeping a structured classroom and sticking with a routine are the other ways she helps her students succeed.
During her time with NNPS, Reynolds said she has experienced many of the things that new teachers may encounter including being moved from one school to another because of needs based on enrollment, as well as deciding to work as a math interventionist and then to switch back to teaching. Once she was moved back into teaching because she was needed, she chose to stay there.
"I love being back in the classroom," Reynolds said. "I love the people I work with."
Enjoying the people one works with makes a huge difference, according to Reynolds. She is fully embedded in the Kiln Creek school community, often supporting various efforts for the larger student body.
Reynolds is a lead and mentor teacher, QUEST coordinator for tutoring, and each year she works with a student teacher from Christopher Newport University. She steps in to help new teachers, serves as a person people go to for support for various things, offers suggestions and when necessary takes concerns to her principal as a member of the Principal's Advisory Committee.
Already leading at the building level, Reynolds said she feels prepared to represent all of the district's teachers in any way she is asked to do so.
She offered these tips for teachers, students and families.
Tips for teachers
- Build the community around you, especially within the school. Secretaries are going to be your life savers. Custodians are important. Those people that you might not see as support, but they're always there to support. Build a support system either within your grade level or with somebody else you feel comfortable to talk with.
- When administrators come in to observe your classroom and offer feedback, take it as an opportunity for them to make you a better teacher. Be yourself and take what they say and learn from it. They're trying to improve you to better you as a professional, as a teacher.
- Pre-plan by looking ahead. Brainstorm ways to work through challenges and obstacles when teaching new material or introducing a new skill to students. Find ways to keep students engaged, keep them from getting frustrated and work through any bumps in the road.
- Lastly, establish a balanced schedule and work rhythm that works for you. Everybody's daily routines and hours vary according to what they prefer. Find your niche. Find your time; what you need to do to be successful. But don't do too much because that's going to burn you out.
Tips for students
- I always tell my students if you feel like something is easy, it's not challenging enough. You're not learning anything. So when you feel like you're challenged, it's a good thing. But don't give up. You might not get it the first time, that growth mindset. But keep working at it and any little piece of growth is going to get you to that end goal.
- Try to find your specialty. What other thing excites you? Is it something with sports? This year with being up in fifth grade, we're starting to try to incorporate a lot of leadership pieces for my students, have everybody some way be a leader in some form or fashion. Find your thing that you like the most and go for it. Because that's something else that's going to keep you to that end game future later in life.
Tips for families
- Talk with your students.
- Read with your students.
- Both of these are going to make a big difference when it comes to everything. It truly does take a whole community to educate these students. They need every aspect. Not just us at school, but parents at home.
- Understand that as teachers, when you send your students to us we're going to take care of them. We fall in love with them. Because I spend more time with my students here than I even do sometimes with my kids at home. So just let them know that assurance that we are here. This is the job that we have chosen. This is what we love to do. So we're going to take care of them.
