Sally Rauber – Homestead High School 2023 Teacher of the Year

Those who nominated Ms. Rauber use words like kind, supportive, and genuine when describing their colleague. She is an expert in her content area who also has a gift for motivating students. Visit her room and you enter a space where even the most reticent learners engage in discussions, participate in pair and group activities with enthusiasm, and work hard to rise to the teacher’s expectations.

Ms. Rauber continually strives to learn more about what she is teaching and is always looking for different methods that will inspire students to become fully engaged in every lesson. When she can’t find what she is looking for, she develops materials to support learning.

Not only do the students in her classes benefit from her creativity, but Ms. Rauber also shares her ideas, techniques, and the resources she has developed with her colleagues. As one of her team members explained, Ms. Rauber always volunteers to create and update common assessments, shares supplemental materials she has created to help her students engage with the content, and is a key member of the educational teams she is a member of.

Ms. Rauber’s students benefit from her outstanding content knowledge and the expectation that every student in her classroom be highly engaged and thoroughly invested in the learning. Her checks for understanding accurately assess how well students are mastering the content and the skills being taught. Students achieve beyond what they might have thought possible because they know that she has a genuine interest in helping them to succeed. Ms. Rauber has that special gift of setting a tone in the classroom where students find themselves wanting to know more, understand better, be good collaborators, and do their personal best… because they want to make her proud.

Those of you who are at Homestead after 3 p.m. are likely to have seen Ms. Rauber working after school with students who have asked for extra help. Parents, teachers, and counselors who work with students that find school to be a challenge often comment on how those young people thrive in her classroom. The same is true for students who excel and are looking for challenges that push them to achieve at the highest levels. Ms. Rauber inspires them all.

Sally Rauber is a valued member of the Homestead faculty. She is positive, hardworking, and loves the profession that the entire faculty and staff of Homestead High School are proud to call our own. She will continue to do an amazing job exemplifying all the great things we do at Homestead as she holds the title of Teacher of the Year for the next two semesters. The students, the teachers in her department, the faculty and staff, and the administrative team are proud to call her teacher, friend, and colleague.

Please join us in congratulating Homestead’s 2023 Teacher of the Year, Sally Rauber!