“MIDDLE SCHOOL WILL BE THE BESTÂ years of your life,” said no one ever. Elementary school is innocent and fun. Then, like a pimple coming to a head overnight, there are fashion choices, passing periods and more difficult academic concepts, not to mention the transition into puberty. It’s a time to get through, but middle-school educators choose to live in it every day. Meet these campus teachers of the year whose compassion helps our awkward ducklings fly the nest.
Meet Elana Sims, functional living skills teacher at Hector P. Garcia Middle School
Sims is from Seattle, and she moved to Dallas four years ago, after completing a masterâs degree, for a change of pace. She says she loves it here.
The 34-year-old teaches special education and previously worked in early childcare.
Meet Laurence Smith, math teacher at L.V. Stockard Middle School
Smith, 29, lives in North Oak Cliff and started at Stockard five years ago. He coaches football, track and soccer. This past year was the first time anyone can remember Stockard beating A.W. Browne and W.H. Atwell middle schools â their big rivals â in football.
âI know itâs a pandemic, but it was a big deal for us,â Smith says.
Meet Kristy Little, instructional lead teacher at Greiner Middle School
Little, 34, is from Ohio, where her teaching career began, and she worked in Louisiana before moving to Dallas in 2016. Her husband works in the Dallas ISD central office, and they have two twins who are in first grade at N.W. Harllee Early Childhood Center in Oak Cliff. She teaches reading and language arts to students in the afternoons, and she spends her mornings coaching other teachers.
Meet Latoya Hillman, eighth-grade math department chair at Raul Quintanilla Sr. Middle School
Hillman started at Quintanilla seven years ago after a stint in DeSoto ISD. Originally from Wichita, Kansas, she and her husband married and moved to Dallas nine years ago when his job transferred here. They have a blended family of seven children, ages 16-28.
âI love the content, and I love eighth-graders,â she says of her job. âWe know that math is one of the hardest subjects for them, and we know they can all be successful.â
Meet Angela Johnson, band director at Kennedy-Curry Middle School
Johnson, 42, taught at Pearl C. Anderson Middle School in South Dallas for 10 years, and she thought thatâs where she would retire, until that campus closed about seven years ago. Now in her 21st year of teaching, she says she loves Kennedy-Curry.
âMy big goal was that we go to UIL each year and perform successfully, and to start a jazz band,â she says.
Meet Herbert Milliner, math teacher at T.W. Browne Middle School
Milliner, 62, became a teacher 17 years ago and has been at Browne for three years. Heâs from West Dallas but went to high school in Plano and Sherman, and he has three adult children. He says the school gives him a platform to touch a community where he thinks his leadership is needed.
âFrom the principal all the way down, they make sure the school is safe and clean, and itâs a team effort,â he says. âIâm so honored to be part of an organization that helps improve the community and peopleâs lives.â
