For many students teachers provide a pivotal role in helping them to stay motivated and encouraged throughout the school day. For horticulture students teacher Tiffany Woods plays a big role with her positivity and uplifting of students when they are feeling down or need guidance.  

“The hardest part of today is keeping kids motivated,” Woods said. 

Woods has had a passion for landscaping since she was in high school and she knew she wanted to do something with it. She heard about a job offering at Marlington High School. After Woods heard about the job offer, she quickly got her resume together in hopes of applying for the job. Within a week she was called in for an interview and was accepted. 

Woods has been in the green industry for 25 years now. She has dealt with many kids and she struggles with “Keeping kids motivated at times,” Woods said. During her teaching throughout the years Woods has been attending to many kids’ needs and has seen how they hold up in the classroom and mentally as well. 

Horticulture is a thriving business. Woods teaches other students how to deal with employment and to solve problems with customers. Horticulture does a variety of sales such as the Holiday & Winter sale, and the Spring sale which raises up to about $10,000 for the program. 

The FFA also does sales like the Mum Sale in the fall and the Poinsettia Sale during the holiday. Even though the Spring Sale is the biggest source of income the FFA sales are also a huge helper with the GlenOak Horticulture program.  

Last year Woods only had 56 students enrolled in her class. This year she has 141 students in the program.  “Every year I have more and more kids,” Woods said. Due to Woods having such a large class enrollment this year this allows for more things to be grown and more designs to be made for customers. 

Kids in the program have many interactions with one another everyday. Whether it is from doing designs, Using tools, Or giving someone a high five. But either way interactions in the greenhouse or in the classroom were not fun in 2020 due to Covid 19. 

“The Covid 19 pandemic had an impact on understanding of becoming employed,” Woods said. Being in the program during this time hindered peoples learning experience. People could not interact with each other much and it delayed activities and learning. “The Covid 19 pandemic had a lot to do with the change of motivation.” Woods said. 

Last year Woods only had two students show up to the Mum sale. This year she had 19 kids attend and help with the sale.

 “Each year more kids are getting involved and are proud of what they do,”Woods said. 

Woods has a lot of work to do everyday. On top of it she still manages to go home and raise 5 kids. This takes time away from family and Woods still finds a way to distribute her time equally between class and kids. 

Woods’ favorite part about her job is working with the students and ¨Seeing the look on someone’s face when they complete something and are proud of it,” Woods said. She enjoys working with the kids and seeing them succeed everyday and helping them to succeed and gain new skills.