Hayley Davidson earns ‘Teacher of the Year’ at Mill Creek

MADISON – For her fourth-graders, Hayley Davidson works diligently to build a classroom community that supports and encourages one another. Her peers voted for Hayley as “Teacher of the Year” at Mill Creek Elementary School.

Hayley’s teaching career began in 2004 with first-graders at a small elementary school in Cedar Bluff. The next year, she married Lee Davidson, who was serving in the U.S. Army.

“We moved around a bit,” Hayley said. She next taught fourth-graders at Buchanan Elementary School in Georgia and then second-graders in Enterprise. In 2012, Lee’s career returned them to Huntsville.

“I was blessed to be hired at Mill Creek Elementary. It was my dream to work at this school,” Hayley said. After teaching third-graders for eight years, she has taught fourth-graders at Mill Creek for four years.

At Mill Creek, Hayley sponsors Fellowship of Christian Athletes Club with Amanda Story, Sydney Holt, Hannah Bledsoe and Lyndsay Burns. Hayley and Katherine Mitchell co-sponsor the Elementary Student 2 Student Club or ES2S, which increases awareness about transition to a new school.

With her class, Hayley has “Bucket Filling Activities. We write kind notes to classmates and to ourselves so that we can build the confidence to tackle the hard things. I then try to create hands-on lessons that will allow students to have challenging learning opportunities.”

To encourage self-confidence, Hayley and her students say aloud, “I AM A MASTERPIECE made to do amazing things!” This year in science lab, they created islands from clay that exhibited all the learning standards from their units on Land/Water and Plants/Animals.

Hayley’s hometown is Piedmont.

She received a bachelor’s degree in Christian education at Lee University. In graduate work, she earned a master’s degree in education at Jacksonville State University and in 2015 completed an Educational Specialist degree from Auburn University Montgomery.

Her husband Lee retired from the U.S. military and currently works as Program Manager for the Department of Defense. Their sons are William, sophomore at James Clemens High School; Lucas, seventh-grader at Liberty Middle School; and Beau, fifth-grader at Mill Creek.

Hayley is fond of her pets and animals in general. “I sing to my animals and they love it!” Kayaking is her beloved pastime. “I could kayak all day and watch the wildlife.”