Sarasota Teacher of the Year: An innovative 'child whisperer'
After working for ten years in law enforcement as a sheriff’s deputy, Josette Ortega took a big risk. The single mother of two boys, ready for a change and the opportunity to be more present for her children, went back to school and studied education. “Going back to school with the young kids,” Ortega said, “it was difficult.” But she persisted and is grateful she did.
Like her mother and two younger sisters, she began teaching. Ortega taught elementary school in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where she grew up, and she has never looked back. “I absolutely love it,” she said. “It was my gift to teach.”
Now a veteran educator of almost 20 years, the 2024 Sarasota County Schools Innovation Teacher of the Year has taught all levels of elementary school, first in New Bedford and then in Orange County, Florida, where she has family. Three years ago, drawn to Sarasota to be closer to her first grandchild, she found a job at Dreamers Academy.
Dreamers Academy is a dual-language K – 5 Spanish immersion public charter school. Its model is, by its very nature, innovative, with students learning across subjects in both English and Spanish. Students will study math using English terms one day and the next day will use Spanish.
For Ortega, the school has been a wonderful fit. She loves celebrating Hispanic culture and is proud to be a Latina teacher, modeling the profession to her Hispanic students, reflecting their experiences at the front of the classroom, and showing a pathway they can pursue.
She also thrives on the unique challenge of teaching concepts in two languages. She loves seeing how quickly her students learn a new language and the new worlds it opens as they do.
But even before starting at Dreamers Academy, Ortega, instinctually, was an innovative teacher. However, for her, innovation isn’t just about using the latest technology or the newest strategies. Ortega believes innovative teaching is about being flexible, being able to pivot, and especially being in tune with her students and their unique experiences.
As Ortega said, “It’s really making the connection with the student…. You have to look at all the outer layers of a student. What is their home life? What is happening with them? Why are they tired?” She gets to know her students well and then adapts to best meet their needs.
“I roll with the flow,” Ortega said. “What worked yesterday might not work today… So I get creative.” And she has fun. Her classroom, decorated with a nautical theme, a nod to her time in New Bedford, is always full of life. As Ortega said, “I’m very dramatic. Everything I do is with songs, very theatrical.”
At the heart of her work is always an effort to reach her students and best meet their unique needs. While she was teaching in Orlando, it was this approach that earned her the nickname “child whisperer.” A student on the verge of expulsion was placed into Ortega’s class, and she was told it was his last stop.
Believing in the potential of all her students, she set to work finding ways to engage him. Ortega would come prepared with extra copies of worksheets when he began to tear them up in class. She would feed him more math work when she realized how he was drawn to it, and he became more invested. In this way, she built him up. She kept open lines of communication with the boy’s parents. She became a second mom.
While the boy had to repeat the grade, he wasn’t expelled, and today he is in seventh grade, thriving.
Of this experience, at the urging of her mentor and cousin Dr. Bernadette Towns, a professor at Bakersfield College, Ortega has written a book called You Got This. It is meant to serve as a manual for teachers, with strategies for educators to reach kids, especially those experiencing unique challenges, and keep them engaged.
In addition to writing, Ortega has collaborated with Dr. Towns to bring a systematic approach to instruction at Dreamers Academy—to help highly effective teachers articulate their craft, what to them is so natural they don’t always realize they are doing something special.
For Ortega, though she came to it later, after witnessing firsthand for ten years what happens when young people miss out on an education and the opportunities to build caring relationships with trusting adults, teaching has always felt natural.
“I’m a magnet for kids,” she said. It is her innate desire to advocate for them, to value and encourage them, that keeps her learning and adapting and trying innovative approaches. As she said, “I come here every day to change lives.”
About the Education Foundation of Sarasota County
The Education Foundation sponsors the Ignite Education Teacher of the Year Award Celebration in partnership with Sarasota County Schools. For 35 years, the Education Foundation of Sarasota County (EdFoundationSRQ.org) has supported students and teachers because education transforms lives. As a champion for life readiness, the Education Foundation provides personalized, comprehensive resources and relationships so that students can find their purpose and progress intentionally through their K – 12 schooling. Its mission is to enhance the potential of students, promote excellence in teaching, and inspire innovation in education, guided by strategic philanthropy.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota Teacher of the Year: An innovative 'child whisperer'
