6th Grade Center – Jamie Boyd, math 

Math teacher Jamie Boyd has been named the Sixth Grade Teacher of the Year.

“The moment I knew I wanted to become a math teacher was my junior year in high school,” Boyd said. I had Coach Davis for Algebra II. It was in his class that I realized I could be both a math teacher and a coach. I decided that I wanted to focus on making math class a fun, interactive, and positive experience for students. Working to make even the hardest math concepts fun to learn. But just like in other areas of life, why I started teaching isn’t the reason I am still teaching. The relationships I make with my students is the most rewarding part of being an educator along with knowing that I possibly made math fun and memorable for them along the way.”

Boyd started teaching at Union at the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year, all at the sixth grade.

She said, “There have been many unanticipated challenges this year with students adjusting to being back in the classroom fulltime. As a school we have worked together to adjust and come up with strategies to help our students be successful inside and outside of the classroom.  It has been exciting to watch our students make improvements while we are filling gaps that the pandemic has left in their education.”

Boyd is a Union “lifer” attending kindergarten through graduation in 1997.  “I then attended the University of Nebraska on a softball scholarship, graduating in 2002 with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics Education. Years later I decided to go back to school and graduated from Northeastern State University in 2019 with a Master of Education in School Administration.  Throughout the years I have received the following certifications: Mid-Level Mathematics, Intermediate Mathematics, Advanced Mathematics, English as a Second Language and Secondary Principal.”