Two Houston Independent School District Educator of the Year recipients were each surprised with a fully loaded 2020 Acura RDX SUV for them to drive all summer long, courtesy of Sterling McCall Acura.
The celebration included a home visit by Interim Superintendent Grenita Lathan and school administrators to the front doors of Rebecca Hiatt, seventh-grade teacher at Baylor College of Medicine Biotech Academy at Rusk, secondary teacher of the year, and Rebecca Busse, a special education teacher at Bush Elementary school, the elementary teacher of the year.
2020.05.08_TOYEnglishVersion-Shorter from Houston ISD on Vimeo.
“The commitment, ingenuity and proficiency of these educators have been evident all year and once the district moved to closed-but-instructing status, these teachers never wavered,” Lathan said. “If anything, they took their performance to the next level.”
The honored teachers were gifted with balloons, flowers, and gift baskets when they celebrated with school officials outside, in keeping with safe social distancing practices. The visits took place in lieu of HISD’s annual Educators of the Year banquet, which was cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Although the teachers had been away from the classroom since the start social distancing measures in the community, they are proud to have been able to impact their students during the school year.
“I am defined by what I do. I love being a teacher, I never wanted to do anything else,” Busse said after receiving her prize. The teachers have found alternate ways of connecting and teaching with students this year during this unprecedented crisis. For Hiatt, the new RDX SUV is a great recognition of the work she’s done to ensure her students achieve their greatest potential.
“It’s definitely much appreciated and I have been working really hard this year, so I am glad other people have recognized that,” Hiatt said.
Since November 2017, Group 1 Automotive and Sterling McCall Group have partnered to provide HISD’s outstanding teachers with a small token of appreciation for furthering education both in and out of the classroom. It is and remains an honor to recognize the hard-working teachers of Houston.
