ORLANDO, Fla. — A+ Teacher Sara Hudson takes building relationships with her students seriously. When she says her students are family, she really means it and her family does too.
What You Need To Know
- Sara Hudson teaches at Prairie Lake Elementary School in Orlando
- Hudson says teaching is really a year-round job
- She’s enlisted her family to support her students too
- Here’s how you can nominate an A+ Teacher 🍎
Hudson said teaching to her is a year-round career. “Another misunderstanding is that, ‘Oh, you get summers off and you’re going to have a blast.’ No. These kids are my kids for life. So once they enter into this room I’m working with them prior to summer, planning for them over winter break, planning for them during spring break, so it’s a year-round job that makes my heart smile but it’s a lot of hard work at the end of the day.”
Hudson recently taught her 5th graders at Prairie Lake Elementary School about the Brown vs. Board of Education court ruling.
Students were also working together, which is something Hudson says is especially important.
“And they’re really competitive, so it’s all a team activity,” she said.
Hudson’s family inspired her to choose a career in the classroom.
“I come from a long list of educators and nurses. My mom being a nurse. My sister being a nurse. My other sister being an assistant principal. So, they know the heart’s desire of wanting to make the world a better place,” she said.
Her family doesn’t just support her from a distance.
“They are all a sponsor for one of these students that are represented in this class. That provides them with money for each of them to get a new book every single month. They get ten books that they get to keep. They get to read. They get to learn about and to add to their own home library.”
Hudson has a network of those sponsors from across the country and says, “As far as California, New Jersey, Chicago. They come to promotion ceremonies. They come to events. They come to time at the park, and they get to know their student. They write letters to them right before state testing in order to feel that there’s an entire village behind them. It’s not just me. It’s everybody.”
“No matter what, once you enter Ms. Hudson’s class, you’ll be a part of the family forever,” she said.