- May 2, 2024
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Once a Heller kid, always a Heller kid.
That's how Beachside Elementary kindergarten teacher Melissa Heller feels about her students. Creating those relationships with her students and their families is her favorite thing about the job, she said in a statement to the Observer.
"Growing up I had some amazing teachers and some that were a challenge," Heller said. "I knew that I wanted to make a change and be that one adult that was not only their cheerleader, but their safe place."
Heller, who is Beachside Elementary's Teacher of the Year, is in her 24th year of teaching. She attended Volusia County Schools growing up — Highlands Elementary, Campbell Junior High and Mainland High School, graduating in 1989.
As a child, she would often line up her stuffed animals and play school. And if her friends wanted to play pretend, they also played school. Heller was always the teacher.
The year after she graduated high school, her mother suffered a bad fall, breaking her back, both wrists and some ribs, Heller said. Heller substituted her mom's fourth grade classroom while going to college and working at Sam's Club part-time until her mother could go back to work.
"It was at that time I realized that teaching was my calling," Heller said. "I am still in contact with some of those students today."
Being Beachside's Teacher of the Year feels amazing, she said. It was a full-circle moment for her too, as the person who nominated her is a former student of hers that is now a teacher at Beachside.
Through the nomination experience, Heller said she's learned that it's OK to celebrate her achievements — it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience, she said.
The students are what keep her motivated, she said.
"They love simple things and that is what life is about," Heller said. "I always want my students to want to come to school to see what fun and crazy thing is next."
Aside from teaching, Heller said, she enjoys spending time with her family, friends and her cats — and making drinking tumblers and wristlets in her spare time.
Her advice to students?
"Have fun, be you and don't sweat the small stuff," Heller said.
