NEWS A Texas Team Ag Ed Publication
June 2019
#TammyTalks
Tammy Christian, Penelope
We have almost made it! At this point, most of you have had area degree check and Convention behind you, have finished your FFA banquet, and it is quite a relief! If you are like me, it’s now time to start planning for summer activities, FFA convention, workshops and the 2019-2020 school year. I hope that you received Barney’s email about HB 3 and that you had a chance to contact the 10 key representatives and senators about fair funding for CTE. It took very little of my time to make those calls and it is so important for programs. I will be headed to Austin in the morning to meet with the VATAT mentors. I am anxious to hear their feedback on the second year of this program. I will report to you in next month’s newsletter. Continuing my journey...I continued to teach at Penelope, but it was home and I needed to challenge myself. I really wondered “could I be successful elsewhere?” I did not want to be the teacher who became comfortable and failed to continue growing. In 2002 some opportunities came open in our county. I interviewed at
a couple of schools and ended up at being offered a position at Hillsboro High School. It was a tough decision to leave my students at Penelope, but I felt that if was I ever going to grow, I needed to make to the move. In July of 2002, I started at Hillsboro with Bill Woody, who I had known since high school. This would be a new experience, as I had always been a part of single teacher department. I was excited to start this venture. Penelope had been a small district; I began to learn a lot about the paperwork and procedures of a larger district. Hillsboro had an ag barn, I oversaw the hogs, lambs, and goats. While I had dealt with all of those prior, I had much larger numbers. We traveled to most of the major shows and participated in LDEs and CDEs. I knew many of the families and parents in the program but there were many I did not know. I felt like there were some who were be a bit skeptical about having a female ag teacher, but I was able to build rapport and it did not take long to start to feel at home. As with any new school, it took a bit to make all things
work smoothly and get the students accustomed to new ways, but it did fall into place. I felt at home there and felt like it might be last and final move. To be continued… As you begin planning for summer, I have a suggestion. Every administrator and school district is different. They all have different expectations of those who are on twelvemonth contracts. Visit with your administrators and know what they expect. Many times, they are not expecting you to report every day, they know you have put in a lot of time Continue on page 2