Congratulations to High Springs Community School’s agriculture teacher Jessica Butts for receiving the 2020-2021 Nancy Iafrate Consummate Professional award! Jessica is the lone CTE teacher at High Springs Community School where she currently is working on growing the High Springs Agriculture Program. As a teacher working part time in the ag program at her school she has really risen to the challenge of expanding the agriculture opportunities for her students. Jessica has encouraged their participation in local FFA shows and competitions, immediately agreed to participating in the Agriculture Advisory Board, and took on a new digital tool in order to help increase funding for her program. In the ultimate example of her professionalism she examined new standards for that digital tool which was outside of the frameworks for her curriculum and found lessons to use in her classroom to help support growth in her students. She worked with them to create goals for improvement and made a system to reward them for reaching those goals. All this in a year where the additional responsibilities placed on teachers in the district would make anyone feel overwhelmed, Jessica embodies the ideals of the Nancy Iafrate Consummate Professional Award.
