Growing up with dyslexia — a learning difference specific to reading — helped determine the kind of teacher Heather Gonzales would be. Now Southeast Bulloch Middle School's visual arts teacher is also the Bulloch County Schools' 2024-2025 Teacher of the Year.
Gonzales already knew she was SEB Middle's school-level Teacher of the Year. All of the Teacher of the Year honorees from the 15 schools have known they were winners since the awards were announced at their schools. But the county-level winner and four runners-up were named during a banquet Monday night hosted by the Statesboro Herald and the school district in the Julian Room at Uncle Shug's Bar-B-Q Place.
"I am shocked." Gonzales said. "I'm very excited, though, that an art teacher gets to kind of represent the county, because sometimes the arts don't get enough credit, so I'm really excited to get to represent Bulloch County Schools as an art teacher."
Three other sponsors of the local Teacher of the Year program — Parker's Fueling the Community Program, the Bulloch County Foundation for Public School Education and NFP Insurance Brokerage & Consulting — supplied the cash awards for the honorees. Increased from previous years, these awards included $3,000 to Gonzales as county winner, $1,000 to Langston Chapel Middle School teacher Kenyatta Washington as first runner-up, and $500 each to all 13 other school-level teachers of the year.
Gonzales has more than 14 years teaching experience, all as an art teacher, including 12 years in the Bulloch County Schools system. She first taught art to students in kindergarten through fifth grade at Mill Creek Elementary School from 2008 until 2010. Then she left Georgia for a time, moving all the way to the state of Washington, where she taught third- through sixth-graders art at Lakes Elementary School, part of the North Thurston Public Schools district, in 2013-2014.
But she returned here to Bulloch County, teaching art again to kindergartners through fifth-graders at Langston Chapel Elementary school from 2015 to 2018. During that time, she was named LCES Teacher of the year for 2017–18. Since 2018, she has been teaching art to a slightly older set of students, the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders at Southeast Bulloch Middle School, and is now in her seventh year there.
In an essay for the county Teacher of the Year competition, she described how academic learning wasn't easy for her as a student in school, and how this propelled her into art, and into seeking ways to open learning up to children with different learning styles.
"Growing up with dyslexia was not easy, I never felt like I was understood," Gonzales wrote. "I was intelligent enough to know I was not dumb, but frustrated in the fact I could not show my intelligence in my academic classes."
Because of her struggle with reading, school often became a place filled with stress and embarrassment for her, but she thrived in other areas.
"Art was one of the biggest areas in which I would succeed. It gave me confidence and helped me find my place in school," she said in the essay.
So Gonzales became a teacher not only to share her "love for creating art but also create a safe bright place in school where all students can find success and feel like they belong," she wrote.
During the banquet, principals — or in some cases assistant principals — from each school gave introductions of their school's Teacher of the Year before the county-level finalists were named.
Southeast Bulloch Middle School Principal Todd Veland, Ed.D., concluded his remarks by saying that Gonzales is "very caring, thoughtful of students, thoughtful of others" and supplying a list of words he said described all the honorees and especially Gonzales: "creative, engaging, energetic, positive, motivated, committed, dedicated."
Although she didn't mention it in her Teacher of the Year application, she is also a breast cancer survivor. In May 2017, the Statesboro Herald published a feature story by Julie Lavender about Heather Gonzales with a photo of her taking part in a Strongman Competition in Macon just over a month after completing 30 rounds of radiation and other treatments.
"She exemplifies a lot of our values, two of which are grit and resilience," said Superintendent of Schools Charles Wilson, who introduced the five finalists before announcing the runners-up and winner.
Gonzales' boyfriend, Travis Patterson, accompanied her to the banquet. Her two children, Lily and AJ Gonzales, are a senior and freshman, respectively, at Southeast Bulloch High.
Other winners
Kenyatta Washington, the county-level first runner-up and Langston Chapel Middle School's Teacher of the Year, teaches eighth-grade physical science.
Other finalists were second runner-up Brittany Gay of Julia P. Bryant Elementary School, third runner-up Ty Jilles of Statesboro High School and fourth runner-up Stephanie Mackiewicz of William James Middle School.
The other 2024–25 school-level Teachers of the Year are Nikki Messer of Brooklet Elementary, Desiree Penton of Langston Chapel Elementary, Plysheltia Drayton of Mattie Lively Elementary, Angie Monaham of Mill Creek Elementary, Michelle Mock of Nevils Elementary, Nancy Page of Portal Elementary, Shannon Hattaway of Portal Middle High, David Brown of Sallie Zetterower Elementary, Charity Masters of Southeast Bulloch High and Kristy Starling of Stilson Elementary.
Gonzales is now expected to represent Bulloch County in the 2025 Georgia Teacher of the Year competition, sponsored by the Georgia Department of Education, in May. The statewide winner will represent public school education in Georgia and compete for the 2026 National Teacher of the Year title.
2023-2024 Bulloch County Teacher of the Year Ashleigh Wright, from Southeast Bulloch High, offered words of encouragement to this school year's honorees during the banquet. She placed in the top 10 for Georgia Teacher of the Year. Bulloch County's most recent statewide winner was Jemelleh Coes, then at Langston Chapel Middle School, named Georgia Teacher of the Year for 2014.
