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Photo courtesy of Merrick Wilson.
Homewood City Schools announced the 2020-21 Teachers of the Year: Alli Phelps, pictured, HCS Elementary Teacher of the Year, and Melissa Dameron-Vines, HCS Secondary Teacher of the Year. Phelps teaches English Learners classes at Shades Cahaba Elementary School, while Dameron-Vines teaches French II and Pre-AP English 10.
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Photo courtesy of Merrick Wilson.
Homewood City Schools announced the 2020-21 Teachers of the Year: Alli Phelps, HCS Elementary Teacher of the Year, and Melissa Dameron-Vines, pictured, HCS Secondary Teacher of the Year. Phelps teaches English Learners classes at Shades Cahaba ElementarySchool, while Dameron-Vines teaches French II and Pre-AP English 10.
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Photo courtesy of Merrick Wilson.
Jenna Campbell of Hall-Kent Elementary (pictured); Detra Gilliam of Edgewood Elementary; and Reba Hudson of Homewood Middle School were also honored as teachers of the year for their schools.
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Photo courtesy of Merrick Wilson.
Jenna Campbell of Hall-Kent Elementary; Detra Gilliam of Edgewood Elementary (pictured); and Reba Hudson of Homewood Middle School were also honored as teachers of the year for their schools.
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Photo courtesy of Merrick Wilson.
Jenna Campbell of Hall-Kent Elementary; Detra Gilliam of Edgewood Elementary; and Reba Hudson of Homewood Middle School (pictured) were also honored as teachers of the year for their schools.
Homewood City Schools announced the 2020-21 Teachers of the Year: Alli Phelps is the Elementary Teacher of the Year, and Melissa Dameron-Vines is the Secondary Teacher of the Year.
Both teachers began teaching at Homewood in the late ’90s, and both said they knew when they were children that they would wanted to be teachers.
“I just always knew that’s what I was going to be,” Dameron-Vines said.
For Phelps, who teaches English Learners classes at Shades Cahaba Elementary School, a desire to become a teacher can be traced back to her favorite tree in her parents’ backyard in Georgia when she was a child.
“I would hang out at that tree and take my book with me, and I remember in first, second and third grade really getting into reading,” she said. “I had that feeling that a book could take me anywhere.
“I remember talking to the tree about whatever book I was reading,” she added, laughing. “When I got older, I realized my imaginary tree friend couldn’t talk back to me.”
But she still had the desire to talk with others about what she was reading — “the stories, and the characters and the setting,” she said. This mindset led her to want to be an English major in college and then led her to want to become a teacher. She was also interested in traveling and learning about other people and cultures.
She had the opportunity to teach in Australia while she was a graduate student at Auburn University, and although the students were in high school, many of her students were international and introduced Phelps to teaching English as a foreign language.
“I was like, oh my gosh, this is an amazing profession that I didn’t know about at the time,” she said. “I just fell in love with learning about different people, teaching them English and getting to know their cultures. It was fascinating to me.”
She got married after returning from Australia, and when researching places to live together, she and her husband discovered Homewood and decided they might both like living there.
Phelps started at Homewood High School in 1999. She taught “a little bit of everything,” she said. She started with English and study strategies, and then she began teaching language development classes, which were like study halls for people who spoke different languages.
“Those kids were awesome — we had a great time teaching that class,” she said. “We still keep up with many of them today. It’s so fun to see your students thrive and become citizens and do great things. It’s really affirming to have that.”
She then got her TESOL certification, which stands for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, through an immersion program in Venezuela. Then after having children, Phelps took a break from teaching and resigned from HCS. But during this time, Phelps let her certification lapse — even though she had two master’s degrees, she hadn’t kept up with required professional development.
She went back to school, this time at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. It turned out to be a great experience for her, she said.
“It really got me motivated to get back in the classroom,” she said.
She went part time at the high school. Then a friend who taught at Shades Cahaba asked her to consider taking his position as an English Learners teacher. She came and observed, and after one day, she knew she never wanted to leave.
“How did I not know this is what it was like?” she said. “Up until that point, all of my work with English learners had been teenagers or adults. What I realized very quickly was that [elementary teaching] was where I was supposed to be.”
Over the years, Phelps has grown as a teacher in many ways, she said. She remembers being young and fresh out of college and wanting to share with her students all the things she learned in school. What she learned, though, is that a lot of the job is the stuff you can’t teach.
“So much of it is relating to people; and finding humor in situations that are challenging and difficult; and having hope, especially this year,” she said.
Getting the Teacher of the Year award right now, in the middle of theCOVID-19 pandemic, is especially affirming, she said.
“We’re tired,” she said, tears forming in her eyes. “Not to speak for all the teachers out there, but we are working so hard to make school normal and to make it fun and engaging and do it all. The life experiences I’ve had — the experiences I’ve had within this community and getting to know the families I work with and the more marginalized populations — it’s made me into a different person. A better person. They make me want to be better all the time.”
SECONDARY TEACHER OF THE YEAR
Unlike Phelps, Dameron-Vines grew up in Homewood and went through the school system as a child.
“Even as a young kid, I just remember feeling like my teachers truly knew who I was, saw me as that individual and worked with me that way,” she said. “I never felt like a number. I always felt like they truly knew who I was, and I felt like that all the way through.”
As she grew older, she became more attracted to teaching as a profession because it’s a career that allows one to gain knowledge and explore curiosities. She enjoys sharing that passion with her students, she said.
“That electricity that happens when they’re engaged, when I can see the lightbulb come on, it’s very exciting,” she said.
Dameron-Vines teaches French II and Pre-AP English 10 and is the yearbook advisor for the high school. She started teaching at Homewood in 1996, just a few years before Phelps also started at Homewood High School.
Like Phelps, Dameron-Vines also said she’s grown over the years.
“I have learned that the relationships — with my students, my colleagues, with the families — that is just as important as what I am teaching them,” she said. “It all has to go hand in hand. I can’t prioritize the content over the people. To do the content well, I have to know my people well.”
Although the past year has been extra challenging, Dameron-Vines said she feels grateful and honored to be a part of the experience.
“To be able to say later on in life: ‘Yes, with my colleagues, we worked through that together. We did it together. We figured it out,’” she said. “I love the creativity of teaching and the fact that it’s never what you think it’s going to be. You’ve got to be willing to jump in, and this is the same way.”
At first, she worried there wouldn’t be a sense of community through virtual classrooms, but Dameron-Vines said there has been. “I feel like I know those kids just as well as if they were in my room.”
INDIVIDUAL SCHOOLS
The school system also honored teachers of the year at each individual school:
- Edgewood Elementary: Detra Gilliam
- Hall-Kent Elementary: Jenna Campbell
- Shades Cahaba Elementary: Alli Phelps
- Homewood Middle: Reba Hudson
- Homewood High: Melissa Dameron-Vines
