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Photo courtesy of Interlachen Junior-Senior High School – Katie Hess, an economics teacher at Interlachen Junior-Senior High School, holds the letter informing her she has been accepted to attend a conference in Georgia this summer. -
Photo courtesy of Q.I. Roberts Junior-Senior High School – Catelyn Boze, a Q.I. Roberts Junior-Senior High School English teacher who recently won the Robert M. Durling Prize, holds an award she received in 2023.
School officials are celebrating two local teachers, one of whom learned this week she’d been selected to attend a teaching program and the other who is the first educator from Florida to receive a literary award.
Interlachen Junior-Senior High School teacher Katie Hess was selected Tuesday to attend the Georgia Council on Economic Education summer program, a partnership with Georgia-Pacific.
The economics teacher and girls weightlifting coach will spend four days in June learning about better practices for teaching economics in high schools, according to the council. Hess said she will travel around Atlanta to learn about monetary policies, entrepreneurship and personal finance from economics experts.
“I’ve taught economics for three years now at IHS,” Hess said. “It’s one of those classes that you want to make more real for the students. And I figured, when I looked at the itinerary, there were a lot of things on there that piqued my interest, and so I thought, ‘Why not go ahead and apply for (the program)?’”
Other parts of the program include learning about economics through trivia nights, hearing from speakers from Georgia-Pacific and touring the Waffle House Museum, according to the itinerary.
Hess has taught for 15 years and thought she could learn much from the program. She said she wants to make her economics classes fun, and this program could amplify her efforts.
Georgia Council officials selected just 25 people nationwide, and Hess said she is one of only two people chosen from Florida.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” she said.
Superintendent Rick Surrency said he’s proud of Hess and the opportunity she has been presented. He believes the four-day excursion will significantly benefit her students.
“Mrs. Hess is a superb educator and spends many hours planning lessons and collaborating with her peers,” he said in an email. “I have no doubt she will use this learning experience to share with her colleagues in our district-wide learning communities.”
Principal Amber Symonds called Hess a lifelong learner who always looks for ways to grow.
“She is a teacher that is truly in the profession for the betterment of kids,” Symonds said.
Hess, who taught middle school in Putnam County before junior and senior high schools merged, has supported her students from their middle school years to their senior year, Symonds said.
Interlachen is blessed to have Hess as a teacher, said Symonds, who wishes every student could learn from someone like Hess.
“She is a very, very intelligent lady that has the skill of sharing knowledge with kids on a level that they can understand,” Symonds said. “To me, she’s the total package because not only does she have the content and has that desire to know the content. She has a great rapport with kids. So, she can bring it all together.”
Over in Florahome, Q.I. Roberts Junior-Senior High School officials are celebrating English teacher Catelyn Boze.
The Dante Society of America awarded Boze the Robert M. Durling Prize for being the best classics teacher in the country. The prize, named after a distinguished literature professor at the University of California, recognizes educators who teach Italian poet Dante Alighieri.
Alighieri is best known for authoring “The Divine Comedy,” which Boze teaches in her 11th and 12th grade classes.
She said the award is special because she wrote her undergraduate thesis on “The Divine Comedy” at the University of Florida.
“It’s a real kind of honor to get this award because, first of all, I think it represents really positive things about our school and the level of teaching that we’re aspiring to,” Boze said. “And it’s a book that means a lot to me.”
Boze is the first recipient from Florida and the first public school teacher to receive the award since its inception in 2016, according to the society’s website.
“Our teaching is at that level,” she said. “Our kids are at that level. We just have to have that belief in what kids are capable of.”
Boze is in her 10th year of teaching at Q.I. Roberts and said she wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
Principal Joe Theobold said Boze is driven to make students think hard about how past literature is still relevant.
Boze, who has been teaching Alighieri’s work for four years, said students like it because it teaches them about persistence, how other literature relates to Alighieri and why people study literature, culture and history.
“Mrs. Boze is a fascinating teacher,” Theobold said. “While she has the knowledge to be a researcher or professor, her pedagogy is so remarkably technical she gets great results and deep engagement from her students.”
Surrency said Boze is a teacher who continues to excel and contributes to the success of Q.I. Roberts. She recently spoke on a radio program about her students and some of the accolades they recently won, the superintendent said.
“While listening to Mrs. Boze talk about her students and their experiences, it is obvious that she has a heart for teaching,” Surrency said. “The Durling Prize is a prestigious and well-deserved honor for Catelyn Boze.”
