2018 CCLD Teacher of the Year Award Recipient

Hydee Parker

The Colorado Council for Learning Disabilities (CCLD) is proud to recognize Hydee Parker as the 2018 Teacher of the Year.  Hydee is a middle school math teacher in Montrose, CO, where she serves as a coach, mentor, and interventionist.  She is a member of the building leadership team and helped develop a school-wide growth mindset environment.  Centennial Middle School is a Title I school with a 65 percent free and reduced lunch population. Many of the families are highly transient and 50 percent of the population is Hispanic, of which 30 percent are identified as ELL. These factors create a significant need for Tier II and Tier III interventions to help fill the gaping holes in student learning.

Synthesized from Hydee’s application: I honestly thought that teaching middle school would give me the opportunity to help students who struggle learning math before they became disillusioned. Middle school was my niche. My first year attending Math on the “Planes”, the guest speaker got me fired up.  I convinced my principal that we needed a math intervention program. By year three of our intervention program, there was great success on TCA growth scores and self-confidence among our students was increasing. I learned about teaching with dignity and I continued to attend Math on the “Planes”, introducing colleagues to the world of hands-on activities driven mathematics.

Joe Simo, principal at Centennial Middle School remarks, “ Hydee goes above and beyond her job helping Centennial create an amazing math department that focuses on providing quality instruction to all students as well as those with learning disabilities. Hydee has helped turn around Centennial’s math department which is evident in our last two years’ PARCC growth results.”

Eric Sanchez, a fellow special education teacher states, “ She has been readily available to assist not only myself with ideas, activities and interventions for students, but has an open door policy with every staff member on our campus.  She has the skills to simplify math concepts and practices, putting manipulatives in students’ hands that give them the conceptual understanding to enhance their current number sense deficiencies.”

Makena, a former student says, “ I don’t even know where to start with Mrs. Parker. She is one of the most inspiring, incredible teachers I ever had the honor to learn from. Because of this amazing person and teacher, I got to walk out of (her math) class with my head held high; she accelerated my knowledge so much.  To go from one of the lowest scores in the class to always having my hand raised, ready to answer anything she threw at me, is pretty remarkable.  Mrs. Parker will always be a model and an inspiration to me.”