Omri Davis, Teacher of the Year at Rainbow Elementary School, teaches fifth-grade reading and social studies. (CONTRIBUTED)

MADISON – Rainbow Elementary School’s faculty named Omri Davis as 2014 Teacher of the Year.

Davis teaches fifth-grade reading and social studies.

Last school year, Renaissance Accelerated Reading (AR) recognized her students as a “Renaissance Model and Master Classroom.” Students committed to read fiction/nonfiction daily and test on comprehension.

For ‘model’ status, they kept 85 percent minimum on all AR tests for 12 weeks. For ‘master’ status, they maintained a minimum average of 90 percent for 18 weeks.

Davis’ class also rated the most overall points for their grade at Rainbow. For the past three years, she was named “Renaissance Model and Master Classroom Teacher.”

Her biggest reward in teaching is helping “students become self-aware individuals and instill a lifelong love of learning. This is why I became a teacher … to impact my students’ lives and truly make a difference in their future.”

Davis must push students to try new solutions. “We become comfortable in familiar settings (and) reluctant to change,” Davis said. “Exploring the unknown is a scary task if you don’t know the outcome. I challenge my students to set a goal for each task and expect the outcome.”

The teacher she best remembers is her aunt and first teacher “Mrs. Ivory Bell Gilchrist, a remarkable educator dedicated to the profession. She worked for over 42 years in the Lowndes County Public School System. The way she interacted with parents and students was truly amazing.”

Gilchrist inspired Davis to teach. Davis wants to help children “the way Mrs. Gilchrist changed so many students’ lives in Fort Deposit, Ala.”

Davis earned a bachelor’s degree at Alabama A&M University and a master’s degree from American Intercontinental University in Atlanta.

She has taught first-graders at Huntsville’s First Baptist Child Development Center and fifth-graders at Heritage Elementary School, along with Rainbow.

Her husband Robert Lee Davis Jr. works as a branch manager at Redstone Federal Credit Union. Their children are Austin Robert, entering fourth grade at Rainbow, and two-year-old Ayden Ryan, who attends Union Chapel Missionary Baptist Church Child Development Center.