Tony Serra Product Specialist D.J. Maxwell introduces Teacher of the Month Breann Prince to the 2019 Nissan Altima she will be driving for the next month. (W.C. Mann for The Cullman Tribune)
CULLMAN – Tony Serra Nissan has partnered with The Cullman Tribune to create a new feature recognizing Cullman County teachers who excel in offering quality education to area students. The Nissan dealership will provide a $200 Wal-Mart gift card and 30 days’ free use of a 2019 Nissan Altima to each honoree.
Tony Serra Nissan General Manager Shan Bell told The Tribune, “We are doing this to recognize the hard work and dedication that all teachers put in day and night. As a parent of a special education child, I know the dedication and sacrifices that the teachers make with little recognition.”
Our first Teacher of the Month is Breann Prince, who works with first- through sixth-grade students at the Cullman County Child Development Center (CDC) who are identified as intellectually disabled or autistic. She manages the Structured Academics for Intensive Learning (SAIL) classroom, where she implements both formal and informal applied behavior analysis programs that change a student's environment in order to change or improve specific behaviors.
Information provided by the CDC said that Prince “was the first at the CDC to learn the informal and formal (applied behavioral analysis) approaches plus start mentoring other CDC teachers and aides in this researched teaching technique. The countless hours of training, planning, mentoring, researching, and reorganizing her room over and over is consistent with her passion to meet students’ needs and to continue to sharpen her skills at her profession. Her energy level with solving daily challenges and being flexible would leave most people seeking another profession, but she meets each challenge and keeps making a difference each day with her students and all around her.”
Prince is married to Anthony Prince and has two children, Will and Laney.
Cullman County Schools Superintendent Dr. Shane Barnette told The Tribune, “We are very excited to start our Teacher of the Month program that Nissan is sponsoring for us, and we look forward to highlighting other teachers. But we started off highlighting a teacher from the CDC because we know how important their job is (as well as all the teachers in Cullman County), but we look forward to highlighting them, because we have so many people that go above and beyond all the time and they don’t get the recognition for it; we just feel like this is a small way to do that.”
CDC Principal Chris Chambers said of Prince, “She’s just one of these people that gets here early and stays late, and she’s a true winner, a team player. You know, she’s exactly what you want a teacher to be. She’s always innovative and trying new things and very flexible. And she’s easy to coach and teach, and also she’s willing to mentor the people around her. She makes a difference for the kids, she makes a difference with her aides, and also other teachers in the building. She does a phenomenal job.”
Sitting in the Nissan Altima that she will drive for the next month, Prince smiled, “I am very thankful. I’m shocked that doing what I love has gotten me a nice surprise. But I love what I do, and I do it because I love it.”
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