Missouri ProStart® Educator of Excellence

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Missouri ProStart 2020 Educator of Excellence - Nora Hill

Nora Hill is Park Hill High School’s ProStart teacher. Nora has taught ProStart for thirteen of the fifteen years she has been employed with the Park Hill District. In the summer of 2006, she attended the MoEFACS summer conference as a new public-school teacher. At the conference, Nora was introduced to the ProStart program, and she instantly knew her students needed this program. As she continued researching the program, she became even more enthused that it aligned perfectly with Park Hill’s Continuous School Improvement Plan (CSIP). Nora collaborated with Missouri’s ProStart Director to introduce ProStart to Park Hill’s administrators. She demonstrated the alignment of the program with the employability skills component of the District’s CSIP. Nora was also very excited about the additional opportunities that were offered through the ProStart culinary competitions and the National Certificate of Achievement. Park Hill High School and Park Hill School District enthusiastically agreed to begin implementing the program in the 2007-2008 school year becoming among the first ProStart program in Missouri.   ​

Nora attended the National Restaurant Association ProStart summer institute where she worked alongside and learned from chefs at the University of South Carolina. Nora has completed three levels of the ProStart teacher training and will soon reach the Certified Secondary Foodservice Educator (CSFE) status. She regularly attends the MoEFACS summer conference where she participates in culinary trainings and industry site visits in order to keep current in her practice and to continuously improve her instructional strategies.

For the past ten years, Nora has taken teams to state culinary competitions through the ProStart program where her students have earned top honors, taking second and third place in the state.  She also leads culinary teams with the Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) STAR Events Regional Competition.

Nora has received thousands of dollars in new equipment for the Park Hill District by writing grants on weekends and holidays. In 2019, the ProStart classroom was outfitted with a new washer/dryer set, commercial fryers, commercial Kitchen Aid stand mixers and numerous small wares. All were purchased with classroom grants from the partnership she developed with the Greater Kansas City Restaurant Association (GKCRA). She is relentless about keeping the classroom up to date and supplying students with industry like equipment. She understands the importance of her students being industry ready when they leave the classroom.

Nora has developed strong networks and partnerships within her local community. Park Hill ProStart students have served appetizers at the Greater Kansas City Restaurant Association Inaugural Ball and have served numerous including the Park Hill School Board through a variety of on-campus culinary opportunities.

Through collaboration with the Platte County Health Department to certify all ProStart 1 students with a Food Handler’s Permit certifying each student for five years. Park Hill ProStart 2 students regularly travel to local restaurants for industry site visits. Nora is very thankful for the local opportunities that restaurants and food service industries provide her students.

Nora enjoys staying in touch with former students of her ProStart program. She recently visited with a former student about his journey from Park Hill ProStart to his current status of an American Culinary Federation (ACF) certified Sous Chef. This student shared that the skills he learned in ProStart aided him throughout his education that resulted in him earning an Associate Degree in Culinary Science. In addition, a former student earned the National Certificate of Achievement and continued her education at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, New York.

In closing, Nora will never miss an opportunity to share her passion about the importance of education and this industry. She is confident there will always be a place in the industry where her students will be welcomed and will experience great success.  She has continually been an excellent example to other ProStart educators providing support and guidance.  Her nomination for this award by another ProStart educator is just one example of recognition of her skills by her colleagues.  Nora is a wonderful example of a talented professional ProStart educator.

We are very honored to award Nora Hill, Park Hill High School, Kansas City, MO, the 2020 Missouri ProStart Educator of Excellence. ​

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2019 Missouri ProStart Educator of Excellence - Jody Fowler

Missouri ProStart is proud to announce Ms. Jody Fowler as the 2019 Missouri ProStart Educator of the Year. For 15 years of Jody’s 19-year teaching career, she has taught ProStart. Currently Jody is teaching at Liberty North High School in Liberty Missouri.

Throughout her career Jody has valued continually developing her skills to be able to give her students the best educational experience possible. She has attended National Restaurant Association Summer Institutes, ServSafe training, fall and spring Missouri ProStart workshops, MoEFACS Summer Conference trainings and summer workshops at The Art Institute and Johnson & Wales.

Jody’s exemplary career has been recognized by being awarded Teacher of the Year at Liberty High School, Liberty North High School and the Greater Kansas City Restaurant Association. Her program also has been a recipient of the Darden Community Grant from both the Capitol Grille and Season’s 52.

Jody has participated in Greater Kansas City Restaurant Association functions such as educator meetings, showcase mixers and the Gilbert/Robinson Awards Dinner. She also follows MRAEF on social media and site them on tweets about her students. 

Her students have catered the Liberty Public Schools (LPS) Foundation’s, $50 a plate, major fundraiser, “Education Uncorked” for the past 4 years with rave reviews. They have provided the food for the LPS Diversity Festival since it’s conception. This year they fixed a dinner for 75 visiting students at 3 pm, a dinner for 125 vendors in another room at 5 pm, and then 10 varieties of cultural samplings (borscht, potstickers, tamales, etc.) for around 500 community members from 6-8 pm (approx. 3500 - 4500 total). All in the same day. They prepare dinner for 140 staff members during the spring and fall parent-teacher conferences, cater various sports banquets, provide treats for “Breakfast with Experts” every other month, prepare trays of desserts for local community service workers during National Education Week and provide hands-on lunch activities for 27 children on “Take Your Child to Work Day”. Students have been asked to demo functions at the local library, do meal prep for a wedding shower and help serve at a wedding reception. They compete yearly in the Missouri ProStart Competition and have competed twice in the Johnson County Community College culinary competition. Liberty North students compete in the FCCLA Culinary Star Events and received 1st place regionally in February. They compete at the FCCLA National Skill Demonstration, this year taking 1st place in knife skills and last year taking 3rd in knife skills & chicken fabrication. Jody’s classes tour area restaurants, culinary schools, markets and shopped as a class at the Restaurant Depot. She also has various restaurant owners speak to her classes and critique student projects. 

When asked to share a “moving ProStart experience” this is what Jody shared: 
“Throughout the years I’ve had many students that struggle with school but excel in my ProStart class. Frank had decided to drop out of school until he joined ProStart. He loved it and wanted to be on the competition team, so he worked hard to get his grades up. He was able to graduate and went on to Sullivan for culinary. Raul said he took the ProStart class to meet girls. He is quite a character and was headed down a questionable path! The night of our first major catering event, he hugged me and said he finally knew what he wanted to do in life. Since graduating he’s taken classes at JCCC, worked at Fogo de Chao, Freshwater, and Eddie V’s. He visits periodically to share stories about his restaurant experiences and thank me for setting him on this path. This fall, I have an interesting mix of students from a variety of backgrounds. In the beginning, most seemed very unsure of the tasks I laid out for the semester. There wasn’t a lot of experience or ability and they weren’t sure they’d be able to do what I expected. To everyone’s amazement, they completed each catering event beautifully. One night after we finished a major district catering event, I sent a ‘Thank You’ text to the students that stayed so late. This was a response from a boy that has struggled with finding his niche: ‘I had a lot of fun and to be honest that was the first time I've taken a lot of pride for doing something so big. Seeing everyone enjoy what I helped create was a big confidence booster. I know it wasn't all me but I'm happy I got to be a part and continue to be a part of stuff like this.’” 

We are very honored to award Jody Fowler, Liberty North High School, Liberty, MO the 2019 Missouri ProStart Educator of the Year. ​

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For more information on ProStart, contact John LaRocca and Leone Herring, Missouri ProStart Coordinators - prostart@morestaurants.org.

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