Mrs. Annette Calzadilla received a Bachelor’s degree from Florida International University in Elementary Education and a Master’s degree in Reading from Nova Southeastern University.  Mrs. Calzadilla began her teaching career in 1990 at North County Elementary and then at Brentwood Elementary where she taught third grade, second grade, Title I, first grade TEAM and created an in-house Multicultural Curriculum. After 10 years, Mrs. Calzadilla transferred to Amelia Earhart Elementary where she has been working for 13 years as an effective and valuable member of the staff.  She has a genuine interest in the staff, parents, community and students at our school.  She is a member of the P.T.A. board and has served for years as grade level chairperson. For those that have worked with her, you will agree that she is a tremendous team player and works well with all of her grade level partners.  At Amelia Earhart she began as a departmentalized math teacher.  As the third grade math teacher, Mrs. Calzadilla worked diligently and proved that hard work pays off when her students raised the FCAT math scores year after year.  After several years of raising math scores, Mrs. Calzadilla was selected by the administration to teach 3^rd grade Reading and Language Arts.  Considering her Master’s degree and love of reading, she willingly accepted this new challenge.  Again, her students’ scores soared.  Perhaps it is because Mrs. Calzadilla involves her students in more that just what is expected of her.  She engages them in activities such as Books with Wings Young Author’s Celebration, poetry and essay contests, book projects and many more.  She integrates reading with technology, art, and other kinesthetic experiences for her students.  With her extraordinary techniques and outstanding personality, she sparks her students to love learning and to achieve their goals. She strongly believes that every student should look forward daily to coming into her classroom, with a smile, and should be respected and treated as if they were one of her own!

 

She has not only limited herself to the classroom but has tutored privately during after school hours, Saturday Academy and ELL after school tutoring. She wears many other hats in our school, she is part of the 5-STAR Committee, End of Year Committee Chairperson, founder and sponsor of Club A LOT (Amelia’s Leaders of Tomorrow) where she motivates and inspires our students to be leaders, good role models and reach out unselfishly to those in need. Mrs. Calzadilla has also inspired new minds as a dedicated clinical supervisor to several interns. Furthermore, she is an active participant of the UF I3 fellowship program, in which one of her students was awarded first place for writing an essay about  her; oh and did I mention other clubs like the Reading Club, Hispanic Heritage and Haunted House!

 

Hard worker, inspirational, kind, fair, loving, positive, caring and passionate are only some of the words that describe Mrs. Calzadilla. She consistently instills in her students that “Readers are Leaders”, that United we Stand and Divided we Fall, and to never, ever give up!!