Courtesy of OCPS
Key Points
- Jennifer Bennett, an agriscience teacher at Wolf Lake Middle School, was named a finalist for the Orange County Public Schools Teacher of the Year award.
- Bennett has taught in OCPS for 27 years and uses hands-on projects like raising tilapia to teach eighth graders about agriculture.
- Her students achieved over 70% pass rates on adult-level Agriculture Education Services and Technology certification tests, earning scholarships and job access.
Wolf Lake Middle School agriscience teacher Jennifer Bennett was recently named an Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) Teacher of the Year finalist.
“I come in every day and just do my job, hope to pass on the knowledge to the students, and love to watch them just get excited about learning about agriculture, but… I guess I never really thought that I was that wonderful enough to be teacher of the year,” said Bennett in a phone interview with The Apopka Chief. “It feels amazing. I was so surprised when they came in and announced it. It was not anything I ever would have imagined.”
Bennett has taught at OCPS for 27 years, previously teaching at Zellwood Elementary School and Rock Springs Elementary School before arriving at Wolf Lake Middle five years ago. She credits her children’s fascination with agriculture for her switch to teaching middle school.
“They went to Lake Minneola High School in Lake County,” she said. “She [her kids’ Future Farmers of America teacher] needed me to help her take some high school students to a state competition up in Gainesville. Just riding in the car with a bunch of high school seniors and listening to what they were competing in… and then being able to spend the day talking to that high school teacher — that’s what truly hooked me. I realized that this is what I really wanted to do — teach kids, and, hopefully through them, teach their families about lifelong sustainability.”
Bennett describes herself as “a very hands-on teacher” with a classroom that’s “very noisy as far as learning.”
“I believe students should work in groups,” she said. “There’s a time and place to do independent work, but I believe they work off each other.”
Her favorite projects to teach are part of her eighth-grade class, Agriculture Foundations, “the first level of high school-level agriculture.” Using tilapia that the University of Florida donates to the school, eighth graders learn “water quality testing,” “how to take care of the pipes,” and “how to feed the fish.”
“When we’re done — it takes about a year and a half to raise the fish — then they decide whether they want to have a fish fry,” she said. “Last time we did this was two school years ago — the kids didn’t want to eat them, so we just sold the fish as a donation for FFA, which was a really amazing thing.”
An Oct. 5 news release from OCPS credits Bennett with “driving significant ELA [English Language Arts] learning gains” and “securing pass rates over 70% on state Agriculture Education Services and Technology (AEST) industry certifications.” Bennett is particularly proud of the latter achievement.
“Not all of our students test industry certification, so the numbers look a little higher — but that is a true number,” she said. “Industry certification is an adult-level test. It is actually given by agriculture industries, and these are seventh and eighth graders taking the test, so there’s some really high-level knowledge that they have acquired in order to pass these tests. With that test, that gives them access to scholarships. It gives them access to different jobs… They are kids still, but they’re actually putting the extra effort in to gain this certification that’s going to help them in life.”
Bennett hopes her students “will just learn to be self-sustaining in life.”
“That’s what I hope my legacy would be, is that I can just instill in them that even when it comes to food… don’t buy a packet of seeds,” she said. “You got a tomato in your refrigerator — you can grow, from those seeds inside that tomato, a bunch of tomatoes. Teaching the students that you will always have a way to eat. There’s a lot of things that you can do.”
Bennett is one of five Teacher of the Year finalists for this school year. OCPS will announce the winner at the Stellar Awards on Jan. 15, 2027, at the Gaylord Palms Resort, according to the release.