Demi Herrera

Jessup Elementary
Pasadena Independent School District

Demi received her Bachelor of Science in Education from the University of Texas at Austin. She has spent the last nine years teaching bilingual students in Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. She found her second home while teaching at Jessup Elementary in Pasadena ISD and has been teaching there the last six years.

Drawing upon years of learning and applying several traditional and non-traditional teaching methods, Demi strives to ensure that her students leave her knowing the skills they need to succeed in school and in life, all while making sure they know how much they are loved. Working with bilingual students who are transitioning from learning math in Spanish to learning math in English for the first time, she helps them bridge their skills in both languages by consistently incorporating linguistic supports, working with students in data-driven small groups, using lots of visuals and manipulatives, fostering structured student dialogue, providing student-centered interactive workstations, and incorporating movement in her activities and use of flexible seating. She makes abstract topics accessible by making them hands-on and takes her students beyond the traditional classroom setting by engaging them to apply math skills in real-world environments through classroom transformations. Her classroom has become an Ice Cream Shoppe when adding and subtracting decimals, a detective agency when finding missing angles, and a farm when calculating area and perimeter.

She holds her students to high standards and gently provides the support they need to reach those expectations, in and out of school. She's known to make home visits, provide outside tutoring, and show up for her students by attending birthday parties, family events, and district competitions and showcases that her students participate in.

Demi has also demonstrated leadership in the school community in many ways. She has been the fourth-grade Team Leader for many years as well as the Lead Math Teacher. In addition to cooperating with her colleagues in planning and implementing content, she has served as a mentor to fellow teachers on campus as well as resident teachers from the University of Houston. She took her desire to build up others to another level by joining the Pasadena ISD Instructional Coach Academy. In this academy, she learned from the district's curriculum specialists, among many things, how to be a curriculum leader in the field of mathematics. On another note, she has an open-door policy and welcomes other teachers into her classroom to observe and get ideas and feedback from each other. Her peers recognized her as Jessup's Teacher of the Year for the 2023-2024 school year.

Demi will be the first to say how much she loves working with her students. Her joy and passion for teaching math is apparent in her interactions with her students and colleagues.