Myakka City teacher recognized for her dedication to helping students

MYAKKA CITY, Fla. — Faith Piper has been a teacher for 12 years. She has spent the last seven years at Myakka City Elementary School.

She is the ESE resource teacher. Initially, she taught general education but quickly found her passion was teaching students who need a little extra help.

“I realized very quickly that what I loved most in my classroom was working with my students who had learning challenges or just needed that little bit of extra support,” said Piper.

Piper didn’t want to be a teacher when she first started college, even though she comes from a family of educators. But she fell in love with teaching during her first semester of college and ended up switching her major. 

Throughout the school day, she works with groups of students, helping them with reading, math or whatever subject they need assistance with.

“A lot of my students come to me and they’re very shy or they’re very reserved because they know that they struggle and when they’re in here, the whole goal is to feel empowered and for them to leave my room knowing, ‘Maybe that’s hard but in here we’ve got this and I’m getting better,’” said Piper.

Piper says she tracks her students’ progress so she can show them how well they’re doing.

“We just did our first quarter check ins and most of my students have gained, we track our words per minute that we read, and they’ve gained 30 to 40 words in a minute, which is remarkable progress,” said Piper.

One of her colleagues nominated Piper to be our next A+ Teacher.

“Faith is such an asset to our school. She is so helpful,” said Ashley Davis, who is a VE teacher at Myakka City Elementary.

“For someone to kind of look at me and say, ‘Oh, she’s doing a great job and I want to recognize her,’ it’s an amazing honor,” said Piper.

Piper shared what she loves about her job.

“Every year is different, and every day is different, and you get to know so many really cool little people and you get to help them become even cooler bigger people,” said Piper.

Piper is five months into graduate school. She’s working towards getting her master’s degree in educational leadership. Her goal is to become a principal one day.