VIDEO: Educator of the Week

LOUISVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – Educators help make who we are today and one educator has been doing that for the last 23 years.

Her work and passion for the job stands out, which is why Torya Blair is this week’s Educator of the Week.

You could say teaching runs in Torya Blair’s blood.

She takes after her mother and is a second generation educator and for almost a decade, taught right beside her.

Appreciative and honored best explains how Mrs. Blair feels about the award.

“You never know who’s watching you. You don’t know whose life you’re impacting and you don’t want to affect their life for the negative. I said you want to always be doing something positive.”

Blair is the coordinator at the Louisville Municipal Alternative School and sees the current 18 enrolled students as her children.

“I use examples from my life, what I’ve been through and even my family, and I just try to look at how life is impacting them, how it’s affecting them.”

The seasoned educator says it’s her goal to make a difference in the 6th through 12th graders lives and doesn’t hold their pasts over their heads.

“They have a target on their back, as you know you’ve been to alternative school, and I use to see alternative school as jail, until I got here, and I saw that as an opportunity to minister and to help these kids.”

Blair taught elementary school for over 20 years and has been where she’s at now for the last 9 months.

Teacher Tremond Miller says he’s noticed a big difference in the short time Blair has been there.

“I see the kids as having a sense of hope when they leave the alternative program now, and I think the years of experience as being a teacher has helped her into developing a bond with these students, from seeing them early on, as far as third grade, to now.”