Jamie Cox
Poly High School, Fort Worth ISD
Teaches: Engineering concepts
Education: Bachelor in Business Education, Masters in Instructional Technology, Mississippi State University; Masters in Administrative and Leadership Education, University of Texas at Arlington
Experience: 23 years, eight years at Poly
To Jamie Cox, the biggest rewards from teaching have come after graduations, “when students contact you to share their successes.”
Teaching in the urban school district is certainly difficult. Too many parents don't invest in their children's education, she says. “There's no accountability, and we're competing with technological devices,” she says.
This hasn't stopped Cox from pushing. “Students come to her; they want to stay with her,” Tobi Jackson, the Fort Worth school trustee whose district includes Poly, says.
Cox is sponsor of the campus' Environmental Club, where, through lessons on environmental engineering and waste reduction, she introduces the students to composting and the importance of not littering. Some of her students have started their own compost beds at home.
Cox, winner of the 2015 Keep Texas Beautiful Sadie Ray Graff Education Award and a former Fort Worth schools secondary teacher of the year honoree, has managed the Poly faculty, staff, and student participation in Fort Worth's Trash Bash, Litter Stomp and Cowtown Cleanup events. Poly High has won recognition for most youth participants. She was also Poly High's teacher of the year in 2002-03, 2003-04, and 2014-15, and a finalist this year for the Fort Worth ISD's secondary teacher of the year.
Cox has simple advice for parents: “Support their child's education. And read. Read with us,” she says.
Off the clock, you'll find her hiking, cooking, riding horses, reading and volunteering.
