Rochel Abrams was the 2018 recipient of the John E. Lawrence Administrator of the Year Award. She is described as an amazing administrator and great leader for Leon County Adult & Community Education.
Rochel always goes above and beyond her call of duty when it comes to her teachers. Those around her say they couldn’t have asked for a better leader. Rochel leads by example and has earned the respect from many in the district. Rochel is always willing to help out when needed and will make sure you have all the resources, training and materials you will need to teach a lesson. She has provided training, and even one on one training, to make sure you feel comfortable teaching the material to the students. She will make sure teachers have all the supplies necessary to teach our population of students and she rarely says “NO”.
Rochel has a unique way of getting you to love your worst subject. Rochel loves math and has an enthusiastic way to get you to teach it. She takes Algebra courses for fun. Rochel knows the struggle our students deal with intellectually and the problems they have outside of class. She takes the time to get to know our teachers and our students on a personal level. Rochel helps students out with outside resources when they are struggling financially, emotionally and physically. She lives and breathes adult education.
Rochel has always been a person you can count on for the long days of teaching to build your spirits up again. She knows personally how difficult teaching can be and has not lost that knowledge while performing administrative duties. She is a servant administrator. She really is there to make others jobs easier and more rewarding. Rochel has the knowledge of all aspects of adult education and the ever-changing legislation that effects adult education jobs. She helps the teachers accept change and finds new and innovative ways to implement the changes. She looks out for her teachers and stands up for what is right for teachers and students alike.
For 27 years Rochel has worked with ABE and GED students through Leon County’s Adult and Community Education School. She has been an administrator for the last 15 years as both a project manager and assistant principal. Her years of teaching have helped her to be an effective recruiter, trainer, and support to her teachers. She currently supervisors more than 20 full and part-time GED teachers in ten locations and online. Last year she was the direct administrator for 1,268 ABE and GED students.
Rochel never just goes home because it is time, but is devoted to finishing whatever needs to be done for her teachers and students. Her devotion inspires all of those who work with her and is matched by her willingness to drop her own task at any point to help the rest of us with questions. She is a data guru, at one time she was the GED chief examiner for Leon County. More importantly, her desire to get things right is for her students. She cares deeply that the ABE and GED students, who have most often had difficult educational experiences before getting to ACE-Leon, are treated with dignity and shown concern and encouragement in our classes
