- December 23, 2024
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Jaime Everage’s favorite thing about being a teacher is building relationships.
Everage, Buddy Taylor Middle School’s Teacher of the Year, said when students trust you and value your knowledge, they will learn from you. During her first year in college, one of her professors shared this Theodore Roosevelt quote: “People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
“That has always stuck with me as a sort of guiding principle for how to be the best educator for students,” Everage said.
After teaching middle school English Language Arts for 10 years and freshman English and Reading Intervention for another four years, she has served as a literacy coach for the past three years at BTMS.
“So, the vast majority of my time now is spent mentoring teachers, leading professional development and supporting teachers with instructional practices and data analysis,” she said.
But the principle of building student trust applies to the teachers she works with as well, she said, “because they need to know I am invested in them as people and educators.”
It is amazing to be recognized for the hard work that we all put in as educators especially during a time when we are all so purposefully digging in to help students grow.
— JAIME EVERAGE, Buddy Taylor Middle School Teacher of the Year
And even though she no longer spends her days teaching in a classroom, she continues to build relationships with students. Her motivation, she said, goes back to her childhood.
“I needed great adults in my life at times to mold and educate me, and I am so thankful that they did. … I continue to build relationships with students so that they know there is an additional adult that they can trust and turn to when they need support, tutoring, a listening ear or sometimes just a hug and a pat on the back.”
Her guiding principle was cemented during her second year as a teacher when she was teaching eighth grade. She said she had some students with emotional issues.
“One student in particular was having trouble in another teacher's class and having frequent outbursts,” she said. “I had a good relationship with the student, so I pulled him aside to talk to him, and I asked him why he was having trouble with the other teacher, and he indicated that she was too hard on him. I reminded him that I was hard on him as well and that we all have high expectations. He said, ‘Yes, but when you're hard on me, I know you still love me.’ That reply both broke my heart and forever impacted the way I treated students.”
Everage said she is honored and humbled to be one of the nominees for Flagler Schools’ Teacher of the Year.
“It is amazing to be recognized for the hard work that we all put in as educators especially during a time when we are all so purposefully digging in to help students grow,” Everage said.
Everage says she is a voracious reader who flies through books in her free time. “It's a bonus,” she said, “if I can read at the beach and soak in the sun.” But her favorite leisure activity, she adds, is spending time with her husband, children, grandchildren and mother.
