Scoring high marks: Smith, Hunter represent Homewood in state Teacher of the Year competition

A pair of teachers from Homewood High School and Hall-Kent Elementary School will represent Homewood City Schools in the 2024-25 Alabama Teacher of the Year program.

Katie Smith, an English teacher at Homewood High School, is Homewood’s Secondary Teacher of the Year, and Katie Hunter, a second grade teacher at Hall-Kent, is the district’s Elementary Teacher of the Year. Both now move on to the next round in the annual competition to determine the state’s best teacher. 

Secondary Teacher of the Year

Smith began teaching English at Homewood High School in 2001, following short stints at Opelika High School and Largo Middle School in Largo, Florida. Currently teaching ninth grade English, Smith also has taught 10th and 11th grades, served as the girls golf coach for six years and served as a counselor during her 20-plus years at Homewood High School. 

During her career, Smith also acquired her degree in education administration nearly a decade ago and served as the ninth grade team leader. However, her passions are in the classroom, teaching students about writing and English literature and helping them understand how to enrich their daily lives and develop and value their unique voice in an age of instant information and artificial intelligence.

“I try to make everything we do every day as relevant to the world as possible,” Smith said. “There is always the ‘why.’ Why are we doing this, or how can this affect my life, or how does this relate to other people in the world outside of Homewood High School, outside of the classroom and outside of Homewood in general?

“We talk about and I tell them, ‘This is your voice; these are your ideas, and your ideas are better and more important than what you can generate on ChatGPT,” she said. “When you can get them to generate their ideas without the help of technology, they see that their voice is important, and it’s meaningful, and they do have things to say.”

While Smith said she is honored to receive the Teacher of the Year award and the opportunity to represent Homewood in the regional round of the annual competition, she recognizes that Homewood City Schools is a special and unique system due to the support she and her fellow teachers receive from parents, the Board of Education and the Homewood High School administration.

“Working at Homewood is definitely a privilege because we have support, but most importantly we have the support of our parents,” Smith said. “Our parents are behind us and the decisions that we make, and they send us their students with the understanding that their teachers are here to help them, and so that makes it a positive atmosphere.

“Inside of our building, our administration is here to help us,” she added. “We have administrators in our classrooms who are working alongside us. They’re looking for ways to help our students if they have

issues, or if there are things that we want to do to extend the learning, they’re here to support us.”

Elementary Teacher of the Year

Hunter earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Alabama and her master’s degree from the University of West Alabama. She has been teaching for nine years, the last five in the second grade at Hall-Kent. 

Hunter said her teaching style is a “mix of everything” and believes her primary role in the classroom is to lead her students through exploration and self-discovery.

“I feel like my job, first and foremost, is to be a facilitator of learning. I don’t feel like my style is to stand up at the front and talk, but more to give opportunities for growth and exploration and for experimentation,” she said. “I’m really just facilitating the kids, kind of leading their own learning in a way. Obviously, I have to set guidelines, but I feel like it’s important to let them explore.”

Homewood, Hunter said, is a special place because of the community’s diversity, and she believes the community’s diverse makeup of cultures and classes enhances her teaching and the learning experience for her students. That diversity assists her with teaching the children in her classroom about the world around them, while also helping them understand how special and unique they are, she said.

“We are a diverse population academically, but also socially and economically, and I think that really adds to the magic of Hall-Kent specifically because all of these kids come in as experts on different things based on their home lives, their backgrounds and what they’ve grown up with,” she said. “They know so much about certain things that they’re able to bring to the table, and I think what’s special about that is they get to share that with kids who come from a different background, who don’t experience these or haven’t seen these things.”

Hunter said she is honored to be recognized as Homewood’s Elementary Teacher of the Year among a faculty with many other great teachers, and she hopes that, as she moves on to the next round, she is recognized as an effective collaborator and an advocate for her students.

“Working where I do, every teacher has such a gift. So, being chosen, knowing what goes on in this building, is what I think is so special,” she said. “I hope that the persona that I put out there is that I’m approachable and that I’m a team player. I hope that people see me as someone who is always trying to get better, not just for myself, but for the children that I serve because they deserve it.”

Here are the Teachers of the Year from each individual Homewood school:

Edgewood Elementary: Susan Hanson, science, technology, engineering and math

Hall-Kent Elementary: Katie Hunter, second grade

Shades Cahaba Elementary: Lindsey Mahaffey, kindergarten

Homewood Middle: Jayde Harville, sixth grade math and science

Homewood High: Katie Smith, English teacher, instructional coach