Heather Garcia’s teaching career began in Quincy, located in Gadsden County just a few miles northwest of Tallahassee. After a decade as an elementary ESOL teacher in Quincy, the opportunity arose for her to further her education. Garcia was awarded a grant from the Laura Bush Foundation that paid for her to attend Florida State University, where she earned a master’s degree in Library and Information Studies with an emphasis in children’s literature.
With her new degree, Garcia began the second part of her career as an educator. For the past twelve years, she has been the media specialist at W. T. Moore Elementary School in Tallahassee. Making the decision to transition from a classroom teacher to a media specialist was “the right choice of all right choices.” The students a W. T. Moore love visiting Ms. Garcia in the library, a place where there is no pressure. When students visit the library, they simply get to enjoy the pleasure of reading and discover the wonders of literature which is what makes it the “best place at school” according to Garcia.
In recent years, the library as a haven for reading has become even more important. Legislation that required every book in a classroom library to be reviewed by a certified media specialist meant there was a period of time where students simply didn’t have access to books in their classroom. But, they never lost access to their library books at W. T. Moore.
One of her favorite activities each year is reading the Sunshine State Young Readers Award Jr. and having students vote on their favorite. Students look forward to this every year, and Garcia uses it as an early opportunity to teach children a little civics lesson as well. She tells her students to “vote with their hearts and vote with their minds. It doesn’t matter how your best friend votes. It doesn’t matter how Ms. Garcia votes. You vote with your heart and your mind.”
Civics is not just something that Garcia incorporates into her lessons as a media specialist, it is something she lives. It’s common for Garcia to speak out at Leon County School Board meetings and as the chair of Leon County Teachers Association’s (LCTA) legislative committee, she keeps her fellow union colleagues informed on what is happening in the legislature and ways they can take collective action.
Like many educators, Garcia is more comfortable talking to children than talking to school board members or legislators. But, she gets outside of her comfort zone and has these difficult conversations because “telling the truth is always the right thing to do…and speaking what is in your heart is always the right thing to do.”
For fellow LCTA members who are scared to use their voice and speak out for better working conditions because they fear repercussions, Garcia wants them to know their union can help them share their story. “That’s part of what union membership helps me to know…you can always bring issues to your building rep and they can guide you.”
When asked if there was just one thing that Garcia could let her colleagues know, Garcia stressed the scope of her job as a media specialist, “A media specialist doesn’t just check out books and laminate papers and occasionally unjam the copiers…we do the collection development, we curate the entire media center, we stay current with all of the newest, greatest, best titles and we collaborate with classroom teachers, and we want to collaborate all the time. I know that most media specialists want to help collaborate.”
Whether it is media specialists working with classroom teachers on teaching units, or colleagues helping each other share their stories and advocate for themselves and their students, Garcia’s story is the story of so many educators and unionists across Florida who know that by working together we can accomplish great things.
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