INVERNESS, Fla. — Holli Herndon has a passion for training other teachers and helping her students succeed.

She is the Behavior Specialist at Pleasant Grove Elementary School.

“Most of the kids that I work with, they just need somebody in their corner. Sometimes they haven’t had that person rooting for them to help them get through the things that they need to get through or to learn strategies that they need to be successful,” said Herndon. 

She’s been at the school for two years and already won Teacher of the Year. In her role, she meets with students in groups and one on one. She also meets with teachers to come up with plans for individual students.

“We’re helping not just to build academic skills but we’re also building character for students and we’re setting examples as role models of who they can be and it’s our job to set the bar high and help them achieve what they didn’t even know was possible,” said Herndon.

Herndon started her career in education in 2008. She is focused on helping not only students thrive but also teachers.

“There’s some teachers who don’t even know how incredible they are yet and I take that as something that I need to do to light their spark and keep them going,” said Herndon. She went on to say, “I feel like it’s important for me to go be the voice of Citrus County to stand up for my teachers.”

Herndon visited Tallahassee this year to speak with lawmakers about statewide education initiatives and learn why certain policies are in place.

“I just want to move education forward so by going and meeting people and understanding why they make the decisions they make, I might be able to give them a piece of information they don’t have,” said Herndon.

She says her goal is to improve education overall and part of that mission includes training teachers.

“We have all chosen this because this is a job of the heart so when I’m walking around working with teachers, we all have the same goal and that is to impact students. And we’re here for each other and it creates a community and a network. And that’s no matter what school you go into you’re going to find that,” said Herndon.

Everything she does within education comes down to helping students thrive.

“I want to empower them. I want them to know that there is no age limit to how successful they can be in anything. A child is never too young to do great things,” said Herndon.

Herndon is currently finishing up her dissertation in educational leadership.

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