Laura Ruffin describes Madison Elementary School as “an amazing place to work. The most challenging part of my job is worrying everyday if I’ve done the best job that I could do for the students.” (CONTRIBUTED)

MADISON – Laura Ruffin has been selected as Teacher of the Year by her peers at Madison Elementary School.

For her sixth-grade classes, Ruffin teaches reading, math and science. She also serves as sixth-grade representative for the Math Leadership Team.

Within the last year, Ruffin has been “extremely proud of how hard my students worked with the new College and Career Readiness Standards for math. The new standards are quite challenging, and my students took on this challenge and showed a great deal of success.”

The bond that she creates with a new group of students each year is Ruffin’s major reward in teaching. “We become a family and I love that,” she said. “Most days don’t actually feel like work because of the wonderful students we have at Madison Elementary School.”

She describes Madison elementary as “an amazing place to work. The most challenging part of my job is worrying everyday if I have done the best job that I could do for the students.”

From her years in the classroom, Ruffin fondly remembers Ms. Nell Fleming, her teacher in third and fifth grades in Homestead, Fla. “She’s the reason I decided to become a teacher. She was perfect to me.” Ruffin can’t single one student apart from the hundreds that she has taught. “After 15 years, there are too many to count.”

A highlight for Ruffin is for former students to say that she made an impact on their lives. “That is the greatest,” she said.

She graduated from the University of Montevallo with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and has taught for seven years at Madison elementary. Previously, Ruffin taught one year at Davis Hills Middle School in Huntsville and seven years at Bay Point Elementary Magnet School in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Her daughter Marley, almost five years old, will attend pre-kindergarten next semester at Rainbow Elementary School and then transfer to Madison for the remainder of her ‘grammar school’ years. “I cannot wait,” Ruffin said.