4 Duval teachers honored for career excellence

Nicola Gibson’s attempt to help a dozen fifth grade students at Annie R. Morgan Elementary understand the definition of their vocabulary words was joyously interrupted Tuesday morning.

Gibson was awarded a $17,000 prize as one of the 2025 Gladys Prior Awards for Career Teaching Excellence winners. The veteran educator has spent the last quarter-century teaching within under-resourced schools in Duval County.

“One of the things I’ve learned is it’s not about the recognition,” Gibson said. “It has been about the joy. If you don’t come in here and (teach) because you want to do it, you’re not going to make it through the years. It’s important to have that joy regardless. I’m grateful for that. Even with the recognition, I still feel I have done what I loved.”

Gibson was one of four Duval County educators who were surprised inside their classroom by leaders from the University of North Florida’s Silverfield College of Education and Human Services on Tuesday.

The others were:

• Maika Williams-Watson is a UNF graduate who is teaches English within the Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs at the Paxson School for Advanced Studies. She has served as the bowling coach, Black History Club adviser and yearbook adviser and helped students prepare for standardized tests.

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• Myra Wright is a reading teacher at Riverside High School who has taught in Duval County for 24 years. She encourages students to write letters to themselves as a way for them to realize how much they have grown during their high school years.

• Moises Ramos is an arts educator at Beauclerc Elementary who has spent more than 30 years in the classroom. He has facilitated arts shows and offered a free after-school art club to further engage passionate students.

Teachers changing lives

Steve Dittmore, dean of the Silverfield College of Education and Human Services, says the honorees pour their hearts and souls into changing the lives of children. He estimates a quarter of all Duval County Public Schools educators and administrators have earned at least one degree from UNF.

Gibson is one of them.

The native of Kingston, Jamaica, moved to Florida to pursue her education. She came to Jacksonville with dreams of pursuing a fine arts degree.

The passion Gibson’s undergraduate professors showed illuminated her path toward becoming an educator. Initially, Gibson taught art at Terry Parker High School. She then decided she wanted to focus on elementary education.

Annie Morgan will close after 109 years next month. The Duval County School Board announced in November of last year it will close the school named after an early 20^th century teacher and principal and has commemorations to two other longtime teachers, at the end of this academic year.

This is Gibson’s third year on the faculty at the Westside school.

“(I think) keeping the kids in mind, of the end in mind, your goal is your ultimate future,” Gibson said. “How are you going to get there? That work that you are doing now is not just for the now. Even though I am (pushing) you for what seems like tomorrow, the week after, the month after, it’s your goals. So you’re thinking about how you can build that.”

The School Board approved closing Annie Morgan in part because enrollment is well below capacity. For Gibson, that is an opportunity to create deeper relationships with the fourth and fifth grade students she teaches in English Language Arts.

Because she has them for two years, there is a continuity in her lesson plan from one year to the next.

Amid her joy, Gibson said women like the late Charlene Walker, Latrece Sudduth and retired principal Louise Hill are among those who have changed her life and her career. Their efforts were a reminder that one educator can have a ripple effect that affects generations.

The awards are named in honor of longtime Jacksonville educator Gladys Prior, who taught local philanthropist Gilchrest Berg in the fourth grade six decades ago.

“She had an excellent attitude and was aggressive about life,” Berg said in a statement. “She pushed you to do better. She found out what her students’ needs and interests were and pursued that.”

Berg graduated from what was then known as Robert E. Lee High School before earning an economics degree from Princeton.

Berg is the founder of Water Street Capital, a Jacksonville-based investment firm. He has honored more than 100 teachers and awarded more than $2 million through the Gladys Prior Awards. He has awarded millions more in other education-themed initiatives at both UNF and Jacksonville University.

This year’s awardees will be honored during a luncheon in May.