‘Teacher of the year’ has a new meaning amid the pandemic. Meet Miami-Dade’s four finalists
Teacher of the year took on a whole new meaning in 2020.
So did words like “pivot” and “Zoom.” The sudden whirlwind of online learning sparked a renewed appreciation for teachers from parents stuck at home serving as de facto teaching assistants. Educators learned on the fly how to teach during a pandemic and try to maintain some semblance of normalcy — especially for those students whose only constant was school.
The time has come to honor educators who have gone above and beyond in such a trying year. In Miami-Dade County Public Schools, one of four finalists will be named the
2022 Francisco R. Walker teacher of the year at 7 p.m. Thursday. The grand ceremony, to be held virtually and livestreamed on the school district’s website, will follow the same format as past ceremonies.
For a diverse teacher corps of 20,000, the four regional winners are uncannily similar.
All four finalists are women. They’re all products of Miami-Dade County Public Schools. They’re graduates of Florida International University. They’re tech savvy under extreme conditions, like teaching incarcerated children and teaching during chemotherapy. And they have green thumbs — three of four tend to gardens on school grounds.
NORTH REGION: TERESA MURPHY — SPANISH LAKE ELEMENTARY
Technology never scared Teresa Murphy.
Nothing really does.
Murphy graduated from Palmetto Senior High a year early to walk in the place of her brother who died in a car accident. She moved out on her own at 16.
When as a teacher she suffered from a stroke at the school caused by a Crossfit injury, she and her daughter founded an organization named after her colleague, another stroke survivor, that teaches kids to identify signs of a stroke.
Last summer, Murphy was ready to start her 27th year teaching at-risk thirdgraders at Spanish Lake Elementary in Hialeah.
Her bout with COVID-19 behind her, Murphy prepped all summer. She found freedom in online learning and spent months figuring out what she could do better.
But on Aug. 20, a week and a half before the first day of school, Murphy, 50, was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She could’ve gone on a longer medical leave.
Some days she wakes up and wonders if she should’ve. But instead Murphy took on an online fourth-grade class and sometimes teaches from the hospital during chemotherapy and radiation.
Snapchat filters brightened her appearance and Zoom backgrounds concealed her location. If a doctor or nurse walked in, she muted herself. Her students and their parents never knew about her diagnosis until she told them recently.
“For those six hours, I don’t have cancer,” Murphy said. “I’m just a teacher impacting some kid’s life.”
Her approach to impacting kids begins early. With her master’s degree in early childhood education, Murphy taught kindergarten for 15 years. Administrators told her that her talents were needed in later grades.
“If I got these kids to buy into their education at 5 years old, I make everyone’s job easy,” she said.
For the past decade, Murphy has taught thirdgraders who were held back because they failed their standardized test.
Her students have jumped from a 1, the lowest score, to a 4 or 5, the highest score. She’s big on classroom culture, spending five minutes on self-esteem building four to five times a day.
Murphy has been named teacher of the year at three schools.
“I still feel the selection at this point kind of makes me say the same thing,” she said. “It’s still about the kids.”
SOUTH REGION: CANDICE MORRIS — GOULDS ELEMENTARY
Candice Morris carries her favorite teacher’s last words to her everywhere she goes.
Just before his death, Coral Reef Senior High teacher David Menasche left this note in Morris’ copy of his book: “You’re stronger than you think.” She got those words tattooed on the right side of her body.
Morris never had a teacher like Menasche until she took his English class as a sophomore. He was approachable, caring, honest.
“That’s the kind of teacher I wanted to be,” she said.
Morris, 31, became a substitute teacher in college, then taught for Teach for America, which places young teachers in schools
in underserved communities.
While her colleagues left the teaching ranks, Morris returned to teach at
Goulds Elementary, close to where she grew up and worked through high school to help her parents pay the mortgage.
But the fatigue of being a dependable young teacher-leader in a challenged school took a toll, and Morris took a leave last school year to advise students at FIU. But by summer 2020, Morris saw the impact of COVID-19 and knew she had to return to the classroom.
Morris’ third-grade classroom is a sanctuary for her students. Her cabinets are filled with food, drinks, sanitary items, uniforms and book bags. She’s in on the lingo and knows what her students watch on TikTok. Morris has earned kudos from parents for keeping a watchful eye on her online students.
Morris was the answer to rookie principal Celethia Passmore-Mack’s prayers. Morris resumed all of her old duties, including managing the school’s social media accounts and garden.
“My teacher of the year is the epitome of someone who is a team player,” Passmore-Mack said.
CENTRAL REGION: YOLETTE MEZADIEU — MIAMI EDISON SENIOR HIGH
So much has changed since Yolette Mezadieu was a student at Miami Edison Senior High, yet so much has stayed the same.
She tells the story every year: Mezadieu was a freshman, right here in classroom F-201, seated at the typewriter in the second seat in the second row
when she discovered her calling. Her business education teacher, Ms. Curry, had her teach advanced shorthand to a group of students and even gave Mezadieu her own small classroom in a storage closet.
Mezadieu was hooked. In her junior year, Ms. Curry set her up with a job after school at the school district’s downtown headquarters. After graduating in 1984, she was hired at the district and worked through college. Her goal was to spend three years teaching, then head back to district headquarters.
But she soon found herself recruited back at her alma mater.
Mezadieu has taught career and business education at Miami Edison for 13 years. But in a way, she’s never really left: Mezadieu has been active on the alumni board for almost 30 years. Her mother still lives nearby on 59th Terrace.
“There’s nothing like Edison,” said Mezadieu, 54. “When you come here to the school, you want to help it survive in whatever way.”
Mezadieu enters her students in every STEM and business-related competition she can find. She has a closet full of business clothes for students in need, and will buy new shoes for those who need them. The pandemic hasn’t stopped Mezadieu from taking her students on virtual field trips and hosting guest speakers.
She hooks up students with scholarships and opportunities, but instead of getting jobs at the district like she did, her students are landing internships at Microsoft and Google.
“It just says a lot for a small school who may not have all the resources as a bigger school,” Mezadieu said.
ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION: DENISE WHITE — JUVENILE JUSTICE CENTER SCHOOL
Denise White does her best to stand out.
She’s hard to miss, sporting mismatched earrings, mismatched socks, at least a dozen homemade beaded bracelets on her wrists and a smile that is much needed at the Juvenile Justice Center School.
White’s unorthodox methods help catch her students’ attention. Because social distancing is tough to achieve in her ever-fluctuating class, she teaches via Zoom while her students gather physically in her classroom. Funny faces and chocolate chip cookies from McDonald’s also help.
“I think I’ve always been the kooky teacher,” said White, 49. “I’m a comedian at heart.”
White teaches science to incarcerated middle and high school students. But her main goal is to get those students, convicted of crimes as serious as murder, to find value in their education.
Usually, White has just 21 days to do that. That’s the average amount of time convicted students spend in custody at Juvenile Justice Center School before being sent to a disciplinary program. Some students haven’t been in a classroom in years. Some find themselves back in her classroom.
An educator at heart, she’s worked at Barbara Goleman Senior High,
Lake Stevens Middle and C.O.P.E North, a school for pregnant and young mothers. She began teaching at the jail three years ago.
Local music producers, visual artists, nonprofit business owners, entertainment business managers and Black male psychologists are frequent guests in White’s classes, even over Zoom. She shows videos of rappers who practice mindfulness and gives fun nicknames to her students.
“I’m trying to make it like a real school so for a moment, you forget you’re in DJJ,” said White, referring to the Department of Juvenile Justice. “A lot of teachers are afraid to teach in here. I’ve had kids leave here, graduate and go to college.”
On a recent Tuesday, White learned one of her best students was leaving the jail. His birthday was the coming Saturday. She had a parting gift for him: a black-and-white homemade bracelet from her own wrist.