ORLANDO, Fla. – An Orange County A+ Teacher doesn't take any of her student's accomplishments in the classroom for granted because she's preparing them for life. 

Jenny Griffith teaches Exceptional Student Education (ESE) at Freedom High School in Orlando. She says it's important for her students to aim high.

"Even if you don't make where you're aiming you'll get further than if you set the bar lower," she said.

Griffith says it's important to celebrate those accomplishments.  "Hopefully we see them more often,” she said. “They keep us going. Sometimes it's those little gains and all of a sudden we're going wow we've come a long way in 2 months - 6 months. But we still want them to be as successful as they can be and as independent as they can be."

And that's why besides reading, writing and arithmetic her students learn life skills during the school day too. She describes the skills as "folding clothes, hanging clothes, running a washing machine and a dryer, we have all of that in my classroom. Shredding paper like you would in an office, making deliveries to the office or to another classroom, stocking shelves like they would for Publix, life skills."

The key Griffith says is repetition and exposure. 

Griffith grew up in Puerto Rico. Her parents are teachers. But she developed an interest in teaching when she was 12 years old vacationing in Minnesota while on summer break.

"Next to our house happened to be a camp for special needs children and adults so they signed me up as a camp counselor and that's actually is what started me down the path,” she said.

A path to her passion and to becoming an A+ Teacher.