Meet Our 2025 Candidates

In order to carry out the mission statement of FEMEA, I would communicate to the people in my district the many opportunities for them to grow professionally and the opportunities for their students to learn and perform through the programs FEMEA and our districts provide. I will continue the work Jess started as District 1 Chair to have a greater selection of resources available for our teachers through google drive. I will expand these resources to include contact information for those who wish to share it. I will also diversify the content beyond written lesson plans to include links to video resources, book recommendations, curriculum sites, and playlists of current artists whose work could be featured in the music classroom. Though my experience with students in Regionals and All State, I feel prepared to work with the team to select quality clinicians and organize the festivals to anticipate their needs and keep everything running smoothly. Thank you for your consideration.

As an elementary music educator, I strongly believe in supporting our profession by addressing its most pressing challenges: empowering new teachers and strengthening struggling programs. While the programs and resources FEMEA facilitates are important for educators at every stage of their career, FEMEA is uniquely positioned to make a difference by investing in educators early in their careers - especially those without formal training - and providing the relationships and mentorship, professional development, honor ensemble experiences, and other resources they need to succeed. By prioritizing these efforts, FEMEA can help retain more teachers, sustain music programs in schools, and ensure that every child has access to a high-quality music education. Supporting educators at all levels creates a ripple effect - transforming not only individual classrooms but also the profession as a whole. I believe that by uniting our talents and focusing on these critical needs, we can build a future where music remains an integral part of every child’s education, and every educator feels equipped and valued.

I will work to help educators-and hence, their students-lean into their strengths in order to prosper and recognize their areas of discomfort in order to improve. I will do this by encouraging and seeking collaboration and feedback from my peers on the board and in the profession, particularly the ones I serve as chair.

Communicate and collaborate with teachers to help gain resources and knowledge to help strengthen our programs through our mission.

I believe that music education is vitally important to children. Learning music builds community and teaches critical thinking. Student musicians feel a sense of identity and pride in their craft. Music education transmits our culture to the next generation and helps foster empathy among our students.

However, before our students can receive a quality music education, their teachers must feel prepared and supported FIRST. Helping teachers is a passion of mine and I believe that I can bring that passion to FEMEA.

I have experience helping my colleagues. I am a team leader at my school and I help as a new-teacher mentor for the Performing Arts Department. I have taught professional development classes and I am a PCTA Representative (the union) for my school. I know how exhausted and overwhelmed we all feel at times. If I were District 3 Chair, I would work to simplify and lessen teachers’ workload.

I am excited for the possible opportunity to serve my fellow music teachers by working as an office for FEMEA. I hope to become your District 3 Chairperson!

If I am elected as District 3 Chair for FEMEA I plan on using my other leadership roles to continue to network and connect with others and use all the resources available to me to bring them to FEMEA to help better serve everyone in District 3. I would communicate more with the members of my District to see what their needs are and to help find ways to fill those needs. As Member-at-Large and Secretary for HCEMEC I would send out monthly e-mails to check in and to see what teachers needed and ways I could personally help, or ways to find someone who could help them. I continue to send out what I call “Happy School Mail” throughout Hillsborough County to help spread cheer and for our teachers to know they are truly valued and appreciated. I would like to apply some of these communication methods to District 3 if I am elected to serve in this capacity. I truly believe every child deserves high quality music education and that is only possible if teachers know they are appreciated and know that they have people behind them to support them. If I am elected for District 3 Chair it will be my mission to make sure every teacher in District 3 feels valued by FEMEA and knows that I am there to cheer them on and to help them anyway I can.

As music educators, we are motivators, nurturers, providers and enthusiasts! We are the people that make children smile and excited about school! We create life changing experiences both big and small! Positive waves of change allow for us as an organization to move forward, to find new ways to give back to our community, to each other.

My vision for the Florida Elementary Music Educators Association is to focus on developing community through a focus on connection and belonging. We will work in the best interests of our teachers by developing committees and programs that assist all teachers with curriculum, professional development, mentorship, classroom management or advocacy and more. FEMEA will seek to understand the differences and similarities that we all face within our programs throughout the state and how we can work together to aide one another. FEMEA will serve its members so they don’t feel alone in this musical journey, but that they have found their people and are a part of something truly special. A network, a resource, a community of amazing music professionals!

I believe that every student should receive a quality music education. They should receive instruction in music spanning multiple cultures and genres, and should be afforded the ability to express themselves through singing, movement, and instrument playing. While this does not cover every aspect of elementary music education, imagine a world where this was occurring in every elementary school in our great state!

My vision for the Florida Elementary Music Educators Association is very similar to my education philosophy. The experiences that I had shaped that vision, and I would love to see more teachers and students involved in the Regional and State level experiences available to our student populations. These events are the springboard of advocacy for elementary music education and through that advocacy I would love to see the schools who do not have music programs in them or do not have strong support for the music programs in them to be able to thrive musically. This also requires networking with other music teachers and supervisors, which is one incredible benefit of our elementary component organization. While there have been great opportunities for networking and collaboration with our organization in the past, I am so excited about the direction in which our organization is headed in supporting student and member engagement and I feel like this is an incredible step toward every student in our elementary schools receiving a quality music education.

When it comes to music education, many times we as educators are the “lone wolf” on our campus. We are the content experts, but we are not often on a team of music content experts. I would love to see the member engagement portion of our elementary component organization create and build authentic connections between teachers so that while we are apart, we are still able to collaborate and deepen the level of engagement for our students.

The mission of the Florida Elementary Music Educators Association is to unite and support music educators in order to provide a high quality, comprehensive music education for all children. I feel that if there is something we as an executive board can do to help that mission and vision become a reality, I would love to be a part of working to make that happen. It would be an honor to serve the music educators in this state once more, to further the cause of comprehensive elementary music education for all.

It's exciting to have an elementary music teacher on the ballot. Our last FMEA President from elementary was Sheila King in 2013! From Rosemary's Vision Statement:

"...We have this powerful association filled with wonderful colleagues to lean on and learn from and we must continue to be there for each other. In this time of teacher shortages and tough times of being a teacher, it is perhaps more important than ever that we listen to each other and help lift each other up. I often hear that the key to classroom management is relationships and I feel that is also true of our profession... - the key to surviving and thriving in music education is RELATIONSHIPS. Relationships with our students, their families, our campus colleagues, our administrators, and our music colleagues are all so vitally important. This is my vision for FMEA, to build new relationships, strengthen current relationships, and make new connections so we can help ALL music educators not only survive, but THRIVE. My school’s motto is TOGETHER WE CAN and I see FMEA as TOGETHER WE WILL because we need each other now more than ever and we truly are BETTER TOGETHER. FMEA has done so much for me and I would be honored to give back through service leadership as FMEA President.

Congrats to Bernie for being named as a Grammy Finalist!

Here is a excerpt from Bernie's Vision Statement:

"...I’ll continue to move forward the mission of ensuring that ALL students, regardless of who they are, where they live, what they look like. have access to the same thing I had access to when I was a student in these very Florida schools. A re-invigorated investment in the “Next Generation” of music educators will be on the forefront as well. If we fail to invest in our future, we will cease to exist. The “ALL” in the FMEA mission statement also pertains to ALL music educators, which brings us back to building positive relationships among members. Yes, we have a fabulous annual conference which brings thousands of music advocates to a single location for a short period of time. However, we must continue to develop opportunities to reach even more music educators through our digital and social media platforms as well as future innovative and creative avenues to include ALL. It is truly an honor to be considered to serve this organization in this capacity and I look forward to continuing to move the mission of FMEA forward, for the next generation of music educators and music students."