By STEVEN CALHOUN/Staff Writer

MONTEVALLO – Montevallo Elementary teacher Jenna Campbell was recently honored as a Teacher of the Year by the Shelby County School District.

At the Teacher of the Year Celebration on Dec. 5 at Oak Mountain High School, Campbell received a $500 gift certificate from Books-A-Million and a $500 stipend award from the Shelby County Schools Education Foundation.

Campbell has been teaching for nine years and is now the reading interventionist at Montevallo Elementary, in addition to serving in many leadership roles at her school.

Campbell serves on the School Leadership Team, Continuous School Improvement Team, and as chairperson of the Problem Solving Team. She is also a tutor for the Sunshine School at Children’s of Alabama.

The Montevallo City Council and Mayor Hollie Cost recognized Campbell’s achievement at the council meeting on Dec. 12. Cost recalled having Campbell as an undergraduate and graduate student, and shared how proud she was of Campbell then and now.

Campbell said her greatest achievements could be seen in her students. She recounted a story to Shelby County School News of one student she was very proud of.

“We worked tirelessly together that year to improve [Tristan’s] reading abilities,” Campbell said. “One of the proudest moments of my life was finding out that Tristan had met the end of the year benchmark. We were crying and jumping up and down at his great accomplishment. The smile on his face that day was bigger and brighter than any I’d ever seen before.”

Campbell also told SCSN she believes in the importance of knowing her students and working hard for them.

“I get to know them, love them, respect them and value them. Once I’ve done that, I know that we can achieve anything together,” Campbell said.