EUSTIS, Fla. — Teresa Wills was a high school dropout turned custodian, but now she is a celebrated A+ Teacher at Eustis Middle School.

When Spectrum News 13 stopped by Teresa Wills’ classroom, she was asking her students to think. She told them, “The grass is greener on the other side. It’s not. It’s not. Take it from someone that has been out there and had to work hard to get to where I am right now.”

Wills wants to set her students on a different path than the one she traveled by encouraging them to take advantage of their education.

She is passionate about the Positive Alternative School Suspension (PASS) class she teaches. She says she remembers her own struggles in school after her middle school years.

“But when I went on to high school, things changed and I ended up dropping out of school. I decided that I wanted to get married instead. Got married and from that point on struggled,” she said.

But that is not where her story ended. “Six years later, I went back and got my GED and got my kids through school,” she explained.

Wills worked as a custodian for some time and then decided it was time to get her degree, which led to a career in the classroom. She hopes that each one of her students learns life skills in her classroom that are tools that they can use to be successful in life.

“I want my students to be able to understand it’s okay to make mistakes, but the biggest thing is to learn from that mistake and never do it again,” she said.

She said it warms her heart to see students outside of school who have learned that lesson. “Because I know that I’ve done my job.”