Empowering Educators - Mrs. Jena Spencer Williams

Meet Mrs. Jena Spencer Williams - Physical Education Paraprofessional and North Elementary School's School Related Employee of the Year 2019

Each and every morning, Mrs. Jena Spencer can be found in North Elementary School cafeteria - talking to students and helping them with their breakfast. Mrs. Spencer helps students to find a seat, open their milk carton, or just tie their shoe laces; what ever is needed - Mrs. Spencer is at their service with her bubbly personality, and a smile on her face.

Mrs. Spencer shared that she has always hoped to have an opportunity to be part of the NES team. Two years ago when a position came open in the PE department things did not line up, and Mrs. Spencer missed out on the opportunity to join the team. Mrs. Spencer remembers being disappointed, but said that what was to follow, could not have been planned out any better. Mrs. Spencer had an opportunity to help out at NES, filling in for a secretarial position at the front office which allowed her to get to know the staff, students, and their families. She refers to this experience as a "great transition" into what was to come. In 2019-20, Mrs. Spencer was offered the physical education paraprofessional position, and she was ready to step in. Mrs. Spencer states that the front office experience definitely helped with this transition as it allowed her to be more comfortable with the school, the procedures, as well as the people.

When asked what inspired Mrs. Spencer to think about becoming a paraprofessional, she stated that she always wanted to work around children. She shared that she is a busy sports mom, and she has also been coaching soccer at Parks and Recreation and at Upward Soccer. These experiences on the field have allowed her to share good times with friends and family in Okeechobee which then led her to develop an interest in working with students in a school setting.

Mrs. Spencer said that teachers are some of the most important people in the whole world, and she had a personal story to share to explain, why. Mrs. Spencer admitted that as a teenager, she had a hard time at school. Being often the youngest in her cohort, she remembers feeling insecure around others who just seemed to grab things faster. Mrs. Spencer remembers that she was ready to give up as she found herself at risk of failing. Entering the senior year with a low GPA, she knew that she had to do a quick turn-around or she would not graduate. She remembers feeling like this was not a possibility until she entered Mrs. McKee's classroom at Okeechobee High School. Mrs. Spencer said that Mrs. McKee made a difference in her life. "Mrs. McKee did not let me fail, and made me feel capable", Mrs. Spencer said. "I did not believe I could to it until I heard someone say it to me". Mrs. McKee was that teacher who saw the potential and empowered Mrs. Spencer - allowing her to finish the senior year, graduate with good memories about the school, and more specifically, with good memories about this particular teacher who made the difference in her life.

It has been an upward spiral since then, Mrs. Spencer said. The encouragement from one teacher made the difference that initially allowed her to graduate from the high school, but later resulted in Mrs. Spencer's ability to obtain a job that she desired to have.

Mrs. Spencer said that she wanted to share this story because it illustrates that taking time for students and being positive with them can be everything to a child. "As educators", she said, "we have the ability to turn everything around". We owe this to our students, and we simply cannot give up on them.

Mrs. Spencer said that she has made good memories at NES, and she has received so much in return from students and staff members. She said that she has learned that you do not have to move someone out of your heart to make room for others. Being in contact with so many wonderful students, it is as if her heart has grown, and she has become a better person herself. "I just love these kids so much", she said.

It is not a coincidence or a surprise that Mrs. Spencer was nominated and then selected to be North Elementary School's Employee of the Year of 2019-20. We wish the best of luck to Mrs. Spencer at the district competition!

Dr. Tuuli Robinson 
Educator and Lifelong Learner

Empowering Educators - Mrs. Cassandra Holliday

Meet Mrs. Cassandra Holliday: 2nd Grade Teacher at North Elementary School; Environmentalist, and World Traveler 

Mrs. Cassandra Holliday is a second grade teacher at North Elementary School in Okeechobee, Florida. This is Mrs. Holliday's second year of teaching. Immediately after being hired, Mrs. Holliday's unique teaching style was noticed by her administration, and she was named the North Elementary School 1st Year Teacher of the Year - a title which she will be passing on in the upcoming weeks.

Mrs. Holliday stated that since she understood what teaching was, she remembers wanting to be a teacher. She talked about her childhood, and how she, being the oldest child in the family, often played school with her siblings. Mrs. Holliday talked about her grandparents who have had a huge impact on her life, and how they guided her to find a profession that would allow her to have a substantial income and flexibility in life. Under the guidance of her grandparents, Mrs. Holliday was toying around with the idea of becoming a criminal prosecutor, but life just took a different route - and always centered around children in one way or another. Starting at age 12, Mrs. Holliday had several babysitting opportunities. Later, she helped with high school drama classes, and also assisted teachers as an after school volunteer by help teachers do things for their classrooms. Later, when enrolled at Florida State University, Mrs. Holliday signed up to be a tutor to serve the unique needs of the population in the area. Mrs. Holliday stated that in her 20s, she had the epiphany that her experiences have paved a path for her to be a teacher - a career that she now enjoys.

Mrs. Holliday is a good match to a classroom setting as she has a good understanding of her students and families in general. Having studied human psychology and worked for New Horizons as a counselor, it was further confirmed that teaching is the "thing" for her. She now enjoys the connections that she has with her students, and the challenge of empowering each and every one of her students in ways that set them up for success. Mrs. Holliday described teaching as molding minds: "I am not here to tell them what to think, but how to think". She talked about students asking deeper questions, and reaching the moment where they get excited about something that they did not know before.

Today, Mrs. Holliday is content with her career choices, as she has the opportunity to have an impact on her students' lives. She said: "You cannot change the world, but you can change each child. You can spark their interest in something that is important to them". In addition to teaching 2nd grade, Mrs. Holliday is now tutoring the 4th and 5th grade students during the after school tutoring session, with hopes to increase her impact on students at NES.

When talking about the profession of teaching in general, Mrs. Holliday compared teaching in America and New Zealand, the homeland of her husband Ivan. She spoke about the changed perceptions, and how she feels that teaching has become undervalued across many nations. She spoke about the teacher salaries, and the huge discrepancies of salaries between America and New Zealand where teachers are paid significantly less when considering the cost of living. Mrs. Holliday called our current situation as a crisis in education, but concluded enthusiastically that at the end of the day, we do not do it for money; and those who have a passion for it, make it work.

Outside of her classroom, Mrs. Holliday has a great passion for outdoors, and she is an avid traveler. She has lived in four different countries, and traveled to twenty five others. Her pursuit is to take on the National Parks system in the United States, and she has already visited 23 of the 60 parks. Mrs. Holliday said that having these rich experiences makes her a better teacher. She is not limited to disseminating the information that she has learned from others; rather, she can now share information from her own experiences.



At North Elementary School, Mrs. Holliday is well known for her abundant knowledge about various animals. Earlier this year, she helped a group of kindergarten students and teachers to be safe from a snake that had sneaked into our campus. Mrs. Holliday said that she is used to handling various animals, including snakes, as she grew up with lots of animals at home. She said that they had horses, emu, Guinea pigs, a talking parrot, snakes, and even a zebra. At one point, she stated, her family was in the process of building an island in the middle of a large pond to be able to have monkeys, but they ended up moving prior to the conclusion of the project.

Her life experiences with animals give Mrs. Holliday an interesting insight to the surrounding nature. She said that handling animals becomes naturally to her, and she appreciates the value of each living organism. Mrs. Holliday and her husband are into permaculture - a set of principles that are centered around the whole-system thinking. In simple words, it emphasizes the importance of everything working together in harmony. Mrs. Holliday explains that practicing horticulture is quite difficult here in Florida as the climate is very hard. Her and her husband have experimented with planting various plants and raising small animals, but their work was largely destroyed during the hurricane Irma. She stated enthusiastically that they are building it all up again, and she enjoys talking about the importance of creating harmony in what she does, to her students as well.

Mrs. Holliday and he husband also enjoy diving, and when they plan upcoming trips, the ability to dive at these locations is a determining factor when choosing the destination. Mrs. Holliday is genuinely interested in our world, and the things that are in it. In the world that evolves around tablets and smart phones, Mrs. Holliday has been able to get her students hooked on great outdoors as well - each year (depending on the group of students), from a different angle. Last year, Mrs. Holliday said, her students were very science-minded. They enjoyed learning about reducing the human impact in the nature. They even had their classroom compost bin that they later emptied into the school butterfly garden. This year, Mrs. Holliday said her students are more social sciences oriented, and they are more interested in travel and the world in general. No matter what the angle, Mrs. Holliday is happy to lead discussions in class that are not only driven by the curriculum, but also support students' natural inquiries in their learning. When someone walks into Mrs. Holliday's classroom at any given time, they will find references to various enrichment activities that give students an opportunity to deepen their learning and become more genuinely engaged in their learning process.

Even though Mrs. Holliday is just at the beginning of her teaching career, she is already thinking ahead and worrying about her students' future. With emotion, she stated that she hopes for the very best for each and every one of her former students, and wishes that they will be able to reach their full potential - no matter what they decide to do.

Dr. Tuuli Robinson
Educator and Lifelong Learner

Travel photos provided by Mrs. Holliday

Empowering Educators - Dr. Heli Lusti

Meet Dr. Heli Lusti: Radiologist, Lifelong Learner, and My Mom

Dr. Lusti is a semi-retired radiologist with extensive medical work experiences in hospitals across Estonia as well as Finland. When asked why Dr. Lusti wanted to become a doctor, she stated that her own illnesses as a child led her to ponder her potential in the field of medicine. Having grown up in a single parent household, Dr. Lusti remembers the challenges that her mother had with a child who was suspected of having a heart condition. She also remembers the extreme poverty in her childhood, and wanting to lay a foundation to a better life for herself and her family.

Dr. Lusti obtained her general medicine degree from University of Tartu in Estonia, followed by a residency in radiology in 1978, also at University of Tartu. A stringent school-to-employment referral system that existed in Estonia during the Soviet Union years landed Dr. Lusti on her very first job assignment away from her home town Tartu; in a small town in central Estonia. This placement immediately introduced challenges at a personal level: being a new doctor with two little children, and a husband whose work assignment was in a different town.

With her unique experiences as one of the first radiology students who was taught at University of Tartu (previously medical students had to go to St. Petersburg or Moscow to obtain this specialization), Dr. Lusti faced rapid growth opportunities at the local hospital. Before long, Dr. Lusti was named the head physician at the hospital which allowed her to be exposed her to other areas of medicine. With the high need in the surgical area, Dr. Lusti started helping out during overnight shifts in their surgical emergencies department.

Due to her extensive experiences - in less than ten years, Dr. Lusti was named the Assistant Head Doctor of the Jõgeva Hospital, specializing in the area of the job expertise evaluations of other medical professionals. Even though Dr. Lusti recognized the political challenges that were present during the Soviet times, she spoke highly of the medical system that depended heavily on an immediate referral system through local outpatient services. People were able to get assistance quickly from an area expert. With today's privatized medial system and family medicine practices, she stated, referrals take more time and often, people get held up in a loophole of referrals - without getting the immediate assistance that they need.

With the political turmoil in late 1980s and early 1990 which introduced new structures to the dynamics of how organizations were ran, many jobs across the country were eliminated. Dr. Lusti found herself in a need to start over, and she set her eye at the hospitals in her home town, Tartu. New beginnings were tough. Dr. Lusti started out assisting at the University of Tartu, creating instructional programs in the radiology department. At that time, she was also involved with reviving the Estonian Radiology Association in an effort to unite radiologist across the nation. Dr. Lusti eventually ended up working at an Oncology Center in Tartu. At that time, ultrasound and imaging techniques were first introduced at the hospital, with no experts to use the new equipment. Dr. Lusti had opportunities to study at the Vilnius University in Latvia as well as at the Helsinki University in Finland, to become one of the few experts in the diagnostics using the new equipment to interpret the findings of the ultrasound and computer tomography scans.

Meanwhile, the rebuilding of the newly independent Estonia since 1992 introduced new and challenging shifts in equality, and Dr. Lusti found herself in a perpetual cycle of low income, and the relived fears for poverty as she remembered from her childhood. Dr. Lusti was determined to keep on pressing, and for the second time in her life, she left behind what she knew and set out for a new challenge. At age 50, Dr. Lusti packed her bags, and, with the little bit of money that she had, headed to Finland for a better job opportunity. Due to accreditation issues with the medical degrees, Dr. Lusti was faced with having to re-take all the medical examinations in Finland which she completed at Tampere University, and immediately got a job at the Kristiinankaupunki Hospital in northern Finland.

Dr. Lusti looks back to these years with a smile on her face as she enjoyed the job but also the area in general that has unique history, architecture, Northern Lights, and frequent rain deer sightings. On a challenging side - even though in Finland, Kristiinankaupunki has deep historical roots in Swedish developments. Therefore, it was not enough for Dr. Lusti to learn Finnish language - she also had to learn to communicate in basic Swedish to be able to talk to her patients.

Dr. Lusti was immediately named as a head doctor of the x-rays and imaging department where she started working on digitalizing the outdated diagnostic equipment at the large Kristiinankaupunki Hospital. She worked with General Electric representatives to bring in new machines, and led the way in mammography imaging.

Then, for the third time in her career, Dr. Lusti found herself in a situation where her job was affected by historical and socio-political developments of the country. Local municipal agencies started to downsize the Kristiinankaupunki Hospital; first eliminating the surgery department, followed by the closing of the department of internal diseases. In 2007, the entire hospital was closed, and patients had to travel to Vaasa Hospital - hours away from home. Dr. Lusti re-located to Vaasa where she worked as a radiologist until her retirement in 2015.

The retirement did not last long, however. Several private companies immediately reached out to Dr. Lusti, trying to "buy" her services as a diagnostic specialist. Dr. Lusti has since worked as a consultant at the hospitals of Lahti and Helsinki in Finland, providing services related to ultrasound imaging and interpretations of the findings. When asked why does Dr. Lusti keep on going back, she stated that it is about helping her patients. She said that being a doctor is not something that you do, rather, it is your life. The changes in the medical field require doctors to be lifelong learners, which is something that she has done. Learning has not taken place only through formal trainings, but even more so through the daily meetings with co-op doctors to review the cases and learn from the work of others. Dr. Lusti stated that in any field, you have to keep learning every day in order to keep abreast with the latest research and methodologies.

Looking back, Dr. Lusti is satisfied with her accomplishments, and she credits the desire to keep on going to her personal experiences during different political reigns, ups and downs, successes and failures. She said that her job has not been easy. Interestingly, she did not talk about the difficulties of re-locating or having to learn new languages and systems, but rather, she talked about the difficulties of delivering the message of the new diagnosis to her patients. Dr. Lusti said that the most emotional experiences are those where you have to deliver a message of a re-occurring cancer to a person; especially to a young person. This has been the most drastic part of the job.

Five years after her initial retirement, Dr. Lusti is still talking about retiring, and she stated (again), "Maybe next year." She is looking forward to traveling more as health permits, and add to her long list of countries that she has already visited.

As my mom, Dr. Lusti has been my inspiration in everything that I do. Even after obtaining the highest and most honorable degrees possible, she has pushed herself further each and every day - inspiring me, my brother - Dr. Targo Lusti, and the grandchildren (one of whom currently attends medical school as well) to follow her footsteps in our own ways. Her perseverance and ability to get up after being crushed personally and professionally are more than admirable. Her professional accomplishments are an example, a shining star, that I try to reach each and every day.

With love,
Dr. Tuuli Robinson
Educator and Lifelong Learner