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An R-S Middle School English Language Arts teacher is the 2023-24 Teacher of the Year for the Rutherford County Schools (RCS).
Jodi Bell, who teaches sixth grade, now moves on to the western regional competition to represent the RCS District. She received a check for $1,000 sponsored by Friendship GMC.
R-S Middle principal Sherri Blanton said, "Mrs. Bell is a lifelong educator and the real deal. Her love and passion for students and their education shines through in everything that she does. She is a team player and wants to help students reach their full potential."
Bell says her inspiration to become a school teacher came from her parents, both educators in North Dakota. Her father was a school superintendent there and her mother had a career as a Learning disabilities teacher.
"It was really all I knew growing up," she said. "I spent countless hours as a little girl in my mother's classroom helping her decorate and looking through all of the books that she used for teaching. Conversations around our dinner table centered a lot around education," Bell said.
Born and raised in North Dakota, she graduated from Mayville State University with a Bachelor's degree in Elementary Education. She taught five years in North Dakota before she and her husband decided to move to Hendry County, Florida. The couple lived there 29 years. While in Florida Bell earned her Master's degree in Educational Leadership from the University of South Florida in Tampa.
While in Florida, her husband taught AP US History at LaBelle High School and 8th grade History at LaBelle Middle School.
"I spent time teaching Kindergarten, 4th grade, and then moved into school administration," Bell said. The final 11 years the couple lived in Florida, Bell was the Hendry County School District Director of Federal Programs.
"I have had a wonderful career with so many opportunities to grow as a professional, but I really had a desire to return to my beginnings and go back to the classroom as a teacher," she said.
The couple's move to North Carolina in 2018 seemed like the right thing to do.
"It is a decision that I have been grateful to have the opportunity to make," she said.
When the couple moved to Lake Lure, Bell spent two years teaching at the Lake Lure Classical Academy, but when COVID closed schools for a while, Bell took the year off to take care of her grandchildren and help them with online schoolwork.
In 2021,Bell contacted administrators at R-S Middle inquiring about possible job openings.
"I was really fortunate to land a 6th grade ELA position," she said. At the end of this school year, Bell will have two years with R-S Middle and the RCS.
As a teacher, Bell said every day has the potential to be the greatest day in the life of a teacher.
"However, on the days when students show they are making progress and that they are enjoying what they are doing, I find myself going home feeling really happy," Bell said.
"I think every teacher works so hard to create meaningful, engaging lessons and when these are successfully implemented with their students, it is a great day," she said.
Bell says the challenges of teaching in 2023 are certainly different from when she first began her career.
There have always been students who have struggled and times when her "carefully crafted plans didn't go as planned", Bell began. "What I didn't have were the challenges that various forms of technology and social media have brought to the table for our students. I also didn't have the demanding testing requirements that both students and teachers face each year. Balancing the testing requirements and the social and emotional needs of our students creates a continuous challenge for teachers," she said.
As this school year comes to a close, Bell hopes her students are leaving her class as better people than when they arrived.
"By saying this, I mean that I want them to gain all of the tools that they need to be good people and successful contributors to our community. I want my students to know that I believe in them, and that I support them as they find their way through the maze of learning, relationships, and decisions that are all part of being a 6th grader."
Bell has a rule for her 6th graders and that is they need to be "fearless" and willing to take risks in their learning and thinking.
"If any of these things helps them to become confident and independent in their thinking and learning, then I will feel like they have had a successful year in my class," Bell added.
Bell has certainly enjoyed, along with staff and all students, the new R-S Middle school facility that opened this year.
"Our classrooms are really comfortable and inviting places for students to learn. I do have to say, though, that the new facility is one of the beautiful things, but the faculty, staff, and students that I have the privilege of working with each day are a big part of the beauty."
Bell and her husband live in Lake Lure, a place they had visited many times on vacation. They knew a long time ago they wanted to call Rutherford County home someday.
Bell said when the couple's son and his family located in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and began having children, she didn't want to be 14 hours away from her grandchildren.
The couple enjoy Lake Lure and in their spare time kayak and enjoy the lake and hiking trails. She says she has "loved every minute of being in Rutherford County."
