08/17/2026
Three Taylorsville Elementary School teachers are putting lessons they learned as high school students at the Smith County Career Center into practice in their own classrooms.
Hannah Jacono, Janiya Nickson, and Ashton Beaty each participated in the Career Center’s Teacher Academy Program before pursuing degrees in elementary education and returning to teach in the Smith County School District.
The program is now known as Educator Prep and is taught by Brenda Lowery, who is beginning her 10th year as the program’s instructor.
“I think it’s so cool that these ladies have come back home to teach,” said Lowery.
Jacono began attending Teacher Academy at the Career Center in 2017. She later attended the University of Southern Mississippi (USM), where she earned a degree in elementary education. A Taylorsville High School graduate, Jacono now teaches fifth-grade math at Taylorsville Elementary.
“I was unsure at first about what career I wanted to pursue when I attended high school,” said Jacono. “When I heard about the Smith County Career Center and the Teacher Academy course, I decided to try it.”
Jacono credits one of her former teachers with helping her discover her interest in education.
“I love education, and the reason I decided to get into teaching was due to Mrs. Shay Johnson,” said Jacono. “My first year at the SCCC, I had Mrs. Johnson as a math teacher at Taylorsville. She let me help other students, and I enjoyed that [feeling of helping others learn].”
Nickson participated in Teacher Academy while attending Raleigh High School before beginning her college career at Jackson State University. After two years at JSU, she transferred to the University of Southern Mississippi following the COVID-19 pandemic, where she earned a degree in elementary education.
Nickson is in her first year at Taylorsville Elementary, where she teaches third-grade English Language Arts (ELA). She is also pursuing a master’s degree in leadership and administration through Louisiana State University (LSU).
“I always knew I would be a teacher,” said Nickson. “When I learned about the Teacher Academy Program, I knew then that I wanted to be a part of it. We learned how to become a teacher and how to write lesson plans, and we visited classrooms, which was my favorite part of the course. I loved the program. It definitely prepared me.”
Beaty, a 2015 Mize High School graduate, participated in Teacher Academy during the 2013–2014 and 2014–2015 school years. She attended Jones College and Mississippi State University, earning a degree in elementary education. She is now in her second year at Taylorsville Elementary, where she teaches first grade.
“Teacher Academy helped me a lot,” said Beaty. “Not only did we get firsthand experience in the classrooms, but we were also taught different scenarios and how to work through each situation. Some of the lessons I learned from those scenarios, I’m using now.”
Lowery said the program was started by Pam McCraw, who taught Jacono and Nickson during their first year in Teacher Academy before Lowery became the instructor.
“Pam McCraw started the program,” said Lowery. “When she handed it to me, Hannah Jacono and Janiya Nickson had had one year with McCraw and finished their second year with me.”
When Jacono, Nickson, and Beaty participated, Teacher Academy included performance-based assessments designed to give students experience with responsibilities they would later encounter in college and their careers.
“They were given classroom situations and had to write a lesson plan based on the criteria they were given,” said Lowery. “For them to have this experience under their belt when many other students in college have never had to write a lesson plan, it’s a big positive.”
Lowery said former students have told her that some assignments they encounter in college are similar to work they completed while enrolled in the Career Center program.
Today, Educator Prep places an increased emphasis on work-based learning and getting students into local schools to gain clinical hours and firsthand experience in educational settings.
For Lowery, seeing former students return to Smith County as educators demonstrates the impact the program can have on both its students and the district.
“We have a lot of success stories through the program,” said Lowery. “But for us to have three teachers at Taylorsville who have gone through the program and are currently working in the district, that is one of the great things about the program.”
