More than 20 years ago when NFL quarterback Tom Brady was just a rookie sixth-round draft pick of the New England Patriots, he met team owner Robert Kraft in the team’s old stadium and introduced himself by saying, “Hi, I’m Tom Brady.”

Then, Kraft recalled, Brady looked the owner in the eye and said, “And I’m the best decision this organization has ever made.”

Brady made good on that bold statement by leading the Patriots to nine Super Bowls – winning six – between 2001 and 2018. He’s universally acclaimed as the greatest quarterback, and perhaps the greatest player, in football history.

Stafford Elementary School teacher Taniece Smith has a similar tale, although she probably won’t be winning any Super Bowls or MVP trophies anytime soon. Smith just wrapped up her first year as a fifth-grade science and social studies teacher at the Abilene ISD’s model teaching school, a campus re-named and re-purposed using the model of the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta.

Smith and her family moved to Abilene last spring from Tokyo where her husband – an officer in the U.S. Air Force – had been stationed. Once transferred to Abilene and Dyess Air Force Base, Smith began looking for a teaching job. She interviewed with human resources last year, then with Stafford principal Melissa Scott, and again with then-assistant principal Janaye Wideman, who was recently named the new principal at Dyess Elementary. Smith made a strong impression on everyone and was hired to teach at Stafford.

And then she made both Scott and Wideman a promise.

“I’m very lucky and fortunate to have met with HR and then came and had a second interview with Mrs. Scott and Mrs. Wideman and they gave me a chance,” Smith recalled. “I told them that day that they gave me a chance and they would never regret it. I will forever make this school proud.”

Smith, who was born and raised in Jamaica, has been a military spouse for more than 20 years, meaning she has taught in a wide variety of schools and school districts. She has lived and taught in New York, New Jersey, California, Japan, and Texas.

“When I aspired to be a teacher, I had no idea my influence would span continents,”  Smith said. “What I’ve found, though, is that people are people, no matter where you go. Everyone needs to be loved and everyone needs to be heard, respected, and appreciated. That’s been the common denominator in every stop we’ve made.”

Smith’s principal is grateful to have her talent and experience on her campus. As she was promised, Scott hasn’t regretted hiring her.

“Mrs. Smith is an incredible educator, and I’m thankful to have her on our campus,” Scott said. “Our campus community loves her positivity and her drive for excellence.”

Walk into Smith’s class and you’re likely to see her relating a story about gathering free-range eggs as a child in Jamaica and making that part of her lesson in mathematics or social studies. Her students are fully engaged, which is the point of the new teaching model at Stafford.

“She enjoys her job because she always tells us that she’s here for us,” said Zaniyah Alejandro, who completed her fifth-grade year at Stafford in 2021-22. “She cheered us up with her joy and made her classroom feel like a home. We’re comfortable in her classroom. She always told us we made her feel good, and she made us feel good.”

It’s those students that make Smith believe she’s in the right spot at Stafford.

“For every season of life, I believe I’m called to be in a certain place, and I believe this is where I need to be,” Smith said. “I don’t believe it’s a mistake that I’m here, and I don’t take the responsibility of being on this campus lightly. Being here is a privilege.”

And despite not knowing who Ron Clark was until she joined other Stafford faculty on a trip to Atlanta last year to learn more about the innovative campus, she has fully bought into the new style on the Stafford campus.

“That trip was the first time I met all of my colleagues, and it was just an amazing experience,” Smith said. “We shared rooms and got to know one another on a personal level. We didn’t just see education for what it is traditionally but saw it for what it could be when you think outside of the box. I had no idea who Ron Clark was before that trip, but now I’m reading his book because what he’s done is so fascinating.”

Stafford just completed its first school year under the new model, but already Smith is impressed with what she’s seen from her fellow staff members.

“What I found in Abilene is servant-leadership,” she said. “It’s a bit of a cliché because you hear that a lot. But when you have campus administration and other staff members who are willing to do whatever it takes to give you the support you need, you know you have a home. That’s when you know this place isn’t just a job. You know this place is a community, and you know it’s a place that takes the welfare of the campus community seriously and is working hard to make a change.

With that, Smith and the rest of the campus administration, teachers, and staff have been challenged to raise the bar in how they teach, how they inspire, and how they reach students in their classrooms and on the campus.

“This is the first school I’ve been in where I can walk into a professional development session that’s being led by a peer and I walk away feeling motivated and inspired and ready to raise the bar,” she said. “And I know it’s possible because I lean on the shoulders of everyone in this school.

“I have been challenged in so many humbling ways this year,” Smith said. “As much as I thought I knew about education, this job has shown me how to integrate parts of what I have known about technology and my first love, which is teaching. It’s seamlessly meshed together. I was using technology in my classrooms before, but never to this level.”

By raising the bar on the teaching side, the hope is that Stafford students will respond in how they learn and how well they retain what they’ve learned. Already, Smith said, she has seen growth from the beginning of the year to the end of the school year.

“The most important role a teacher has is making a connection with students,” she said. “This is the first school district I’ve worked in where all of the staff members want to be here. When these teachers prepare for these students, it’s a mission.”

That investment in students is what Scott was looking for when she was hiring teachers for Stafford Elementary, and it’s certainly what she found in Smith.

“Mrs. Smith has invested in our students, our campus, and our mission,” Scott said. “She is a natural encourager, and she uplifts everyone who is around her. She’s made a significant impact at Stafford, and we are so lucky to have her pouring into our students and staff.”

It’s the chance to pour life into students and give them opportunities she didn’t have growing up in Jamaica that motivates Smith.

“What motivates me every day is giving my heart and passion and my deep, ingrained belief that education changes lives and that education is the one thing that can never be taken away,” she said. “I was discriminated against in college; I was told by a professor I would never make it in life. You can use those moments to make yourself a better person because, at the end of the day – regardless of our beliefs, the color of our skin, or whatever – all we need are people with character and people who are honest and hard-working. I tell my students all the time to be honest about what they do. When I go to bed at night, I want to know that my students walked away from the classroom that day with something more than they walked into the classroom with that day.

“But we still have so much work to do in this country regarding the education of our children, and that’s why I cannot get complacent,” Smith said. “We have the resources, and we have passionate teachers who are ready to make the change. We just need to continue this movement so that light can shine on the work that’s been done and is still needed. If we continue to do that, we can change the world.”