The agriculture teacher at Harmony Middle School in Osceola County was named Florida’s teacher of the year at an award ceremony in Orlando on Thursday night.
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Kyndall Brown, one of five finalists vying for the state’s top teaching honor, was chosen for her passion for her subject, her “commitment to hands-on learning and dedication to preparing students for success,” state officials said.
The Osceola school distict, which earlier chose her as the district’s teacher of the year, had credited her with building a “rigorous, standards-based agri-science curriculum,” cultivating relationships with local farms for students to gain real-world experience, and launching a fishing club.
Brown has worked at the district for four years. She held a number of different jobs before landing in education, including as a meat inspector in Louisiana and as a sales representative selling equine and cattle feed. But Brown said in a February interview that she craved something more.
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“I didn’t find purpose in what I was doing every single day,” she said. “I felt like I was just running through the motions.”
Teaching, however, allowd her to build connections with students, share her passion with animals and find a position that made her want to be constantly “doing something for either my animals, my kids, my classroom, the fair, or something of that nature,” she said.
Brown holds a bachelor’s degree in animal sciences from Mississippi State University and a master’s degree in business from Louisiana State University Shreveport.
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