Jahsha Tabron, Del State alumna, Del Teacher of the Year

The ability to reach and effectively teach challenged high school students who other educators may give up on has made Jahsha Tabron the second Delaware State University graduate in the last 10 years to be recognized as the Delaware Teacher of the Year.

Ms. Tabron – who in 2000 under her maiden name Jahsha Downer earned a Bachelor of Science in Elementary and Special Education at Del State – is a reading and English teacher at Brandywine High School in Wilmington.

Now in her 22nd year at Brandywine HS, Ms. Tabron has proved herself effective in connecting with students with learning disabilities and other needs.

“The goal of special education is to reduce services and provide support so that students don’t have to be removed from a regular classroom,” Ms. Tabron said. “I look at special education as a unique need that a student may have… my role is to assess what that special need is, and what is needed in order to ensure that the student is getting and able to convey the information that is being taught.”

As a special education classroom teacher in her first 10 years at the high school, her teaching goal was to provide such students with the educational support that enabled them progress into a regular classroom.

“I was very successful (at that),” she said. “But my students would get into the regular classroom and feel like they didn’t fit, and would immediately do something so that they could come back to my classroom.”

In about 2009, Brandywine High School began addressing that occurrence by using Ms. Tabron’s education talent in a “co-teaching” model – moving her from the isolated special education classroom into a regular classroom environment where she would simultaneously teach students with and without unique needs in the same class environment.

“It worked better, because there was staying power,” she said. “There was nowhere for students to run to, and they had to adjust and rise to the top. A lot of my students found success in that way.”

Over the last 10-plus years, Ms. Tabron has excelled as a co-teaching educator. It has put her in the classroom with other teachers, who in turn witness how she helps students overcome learning challenges.

This year was not the first time Ms. Tabron received recognition for her teaching effectiveness. She has been nominated several other years by her peers during her career. This time, however, the high school recognized her as the Teacher of the Year, followed by the same honor at the  Brandywine School District level, paving the way for her to win the honor at the state level. In 2022, Ms. Tabron will be considered among the top 50 teachers in the country for the top national honor.

A native of Bronx, N.Y., born of immigrant parents from Jamaica, her life journey to her teaching career and the current accolades began when she decided to come to Delaware State University.

After growing up watching the HBCU setting sitcom “A Different World,” a neighborhood friend persuaded her to visit Del State during Homecoming. The Hornet campus environment was to her liking, and the fact that Del State was closer to New York City than some of the other HBCUs farther south locked her into becoming a Hornet.

“(My time at DSU) was the best experience of my life,” she said. “That is where I have met every friend that I still have in life.” That includes, she added, pledging in the Delta Sorority and performing in the unique stage productions of the Umfumbuzi Players. She also first met her future husband Hector Tabron during her Del State undergraduate years, although the spark of their relationship would not ignite until her graduate school years (in which she completed a Master of Science in School Leadership and Administration in 2003 at Wilmington College).

Ms. Tabron noted that Del State’s education faculty prepared her well. “The professors at Del State would call you on work that was not up to standard,” she said. “I was forced into maintaining a level of excellence.”

She added her practicum placements at Welch Elementary School and Dover High School gave her a healthy sense teaching reality.

“There was no sugarcoating. They didn’t place us in the fanciest classroom or in the one that was winning all the accolades,” Ms. Tabron said. “We were placed where we could see what the need is.”

A job fair interview at Del State during her senior year connected her with the Brandywine School District, which called her back for a second interview after her 2000 graduation. The rest is her 21-year teaching history to date.

One of her fundamental teaching principals is that children should not be compared to each other, and that do so is an unfair assessment. “I think we should compare children to who they were and who they are growing to be,” Ms. Tabron said. “If I measure you against yourself, I can say how much different you are from when I first met you and how you are now.”

A good measure of one’s value can be found in the perspective of peers.

Mary Pinkston, a 29-year Brandywine High School teacher and a 2010 Delaware Teacher of the Year, has served as a co-teacher with Ms. Tabron and has seen firsthand her care, compassion and dedication to her students and teaching craft.

“Jahsha speaks life into students,” Ms. Pinkston said in a recommendation letter in support of her colleague’s selection at the district level. “She advocates for students in such a way that they learn the importance of taking ownership of their own success.”

Erika D.G. Brown, another Brandywine H.S. teaching colleague, said Ms. Tabron has dedicated her career to “reaching, teaching and uplifting” students who struggle academically, emotionally and behaviorally.

“She navigates the challenges these students bring with care, understanding and ease,” Ms. Brown said in her award recommendation letter. “To be frank, she educates the students other teachers send out of their classroom in frustration.”

Ms. Brown added that Ms. Tabron’s great value extends beyond the classroom – in assuming formal school leadership positions and less formal ones, such as coordinating staff events and recognitions.

“When there is a need, Ms. Tabron steps up,” Ms. Brown said. “And when she steps up, the job is well done.”

Brandywine High School Principal Keith Rolph said that “excellence” best describes Ms. Tabron’s work as an educator on a daily basis.

“You see that excellence in every single moment she has with her students. You feel that excellence in every interaction she has with staff and colleagues. The passion she has for her profession is undeniable and evident in everything she does,” Mr. Rolph said. “We are so proud to say Jahsha Tabron is the Brandywine High School and State of Delaware Teacher of the Year.”

Ms. Tabron is the second Del State graduate to be recognized as the Delaware Teacher of the Year. John Sell, Class of 2001, was the first alumnus selected for the state’s top teaching honor in 2012 as an English teacher at Sussex Technical High School in Georgetown.