Teacher of the Year Laura Hester ‘couldn’t stop smiling’
MADISON – Laura Hester experienced a definite reaction when she learned that she was “Teacher of the Year”: “I was so excited I couldn’t stop smiling.”
“I’m blessed to work with many wonderful teachers at Columbia Elementary School,” Hester said. “It was such an honor to be selected as Teacher of the Year by my colleagues.”
A kindergarten teacher, Hester serves on the Lighthouse team and Response to Intervention team at Columbia. She also is a member of the district committee that reviews the Kindergarten Standards-Based Report Card.
For her 16-year teaching career, Hester has worked solely at Columbia – since the school opened.
“I believe children need to feel safe and loved in a classroom before they’ll be ready to learn. I strive to create such an environment in my classroom each school year,” Hester said.
“When I began videoing lessons during virtual learning, I tried to begin and end each lesson with a reassuring, positive message to remind my students that I loved them,” Hester said. “I believed in them, and I trusted that we were going to get through e-learning, even though it wasn’t how we wanted to end our school year.”
As a kindergarten teacher, Hester finds great joy in teaching children to read. “(Reading) comes easy to some children, but others work so hard, day after day applying the strategies I’m teaching,” she said.
“The excitement I see in their eyes when they are able to read a beginning level book is priceless. It’s that determination that will help them to succeed at whatever they want to do in life,” Hester said.
Majoring in elementary education, Hester earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Alabama in Huntsville and a master’s degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
“I’m an active member of Skyline Baptist Church in Madison, where I teach Sunday School and serve as president of our Ladies Auxiliary,” Hester said.
Her husband Chris works as a systems engineer at Hexagon – U.S. Federal. Their son Luke is a sixth-grader at Liberty Middle School. Daughter Abby is in third grade at Columbia.
