NEWS A Texas Team Ag Ed Publication
April 2019
#TammyTalks
Tammy Christian, Penelope
This month’s newsletter is coming to you from Austin, Texas. I had the opportunity to attend the Ford Leadership Scholars Banquet. What a great program! It is such an inspiration to see these students and their projects. I enjoyed visiting with them, meeting their families and hearing about their projects and future plans. Thanks to the Texas FFA Foundation and Ford Motor Company for their support of this project. This is just one of the many wonderful opportunities that our students can take part in. The community service projects they carry out are great examples of servant leadership. Continuing my journey...as soon as I had the opportunity, I headed to Penelope to talk to the Superintendent. I explained my change had helped me make the decision, that I was ready to do whatever was needed to be an Ag Teacher. I told him if the position came open, I would like the opportunity to apply again. The English Teacher was going to be going on maternity leave and he offered me a substitute position that would keep me busy for about six weeks. I jumped at the opportunity! The English Teacher, Janice Veselka, was a wonderful teacher. She had all of her plans carefully laid out. Substituting for her was a pleasure and I learned so much. I learned when leaving plans for someone else, details were important. During that time, I learned Penelope would indeed have an opening in the Ag
Department. The Superintendent called me in and told me the job was mine if I wanted it. I would have to get certified in Life/Earth Science and teach 6th, 7th, and 8th grade Science. He would still consider me a part time Ag Teacher, but I wanted to teach Ag. I was married, my husband had a good job and I was limited on where I could I go. I enrolled in Tarleton that summer and started taking Science courses and working toward getting that certification. I was on an 11-month contract and did not have a ton of summer duties. I drove from Hillsboro, Texas 4 days a week that summer to take Science classes and hopefully be able to take the Life/Earth Science ExCET Test. That spring and summer ended up being really hard personally. When I got back in the classroom, I was better, I was more mature, and I knew this was what I wanted. I had great kids and we had some success, it was an exciting time. I started working hard to build a program that would be mine. To be continued‌ Like many of you, I have finished up the spring major stock show tour. I spent the majority of spring break in Houston. I got home just in time to help my Young Farmer group with their spring fundraiser, a cajun dinner, and now we are running the CDE trail. As I look at my calendar, there is a lot left to do in just under 12 weeks of school. There is work to be done on record books, scholarships, and award applications. There are
district speaking contests and conventions, planning for FFA Banquets and officer elections. It is always a stressful time meeting all the deadlines and getting everything complete. I think it is important to have a good process in place for selecting FFA officers. Several years ago I developed a new process for our chapter. It is a four-part system, each counting 25%. The students must get 5 teacher recommendations, the teachers have a scoring system where they rank students on five characteristics. Each recommendation can be worth up to 25 points, with each characteristic being worth up to 5 points. They then can share either positive or negative information. Continue on page 2