Jessica Crawford, Spanish Teacher - Horizon Middle School

“I look forward to coming to work every single day, because I get to work with these great, amazing, talented kids," says Jessica Crawford, a Spanish teacher at Horizon Middle School. "I don't know what there isn’t to love about this.”
Crawford grew up in North Dakota and Minnesota. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish education from North Dakota State University in Fargo, North Dakota, and then started her teaching career in Bullhead City, Arizona. After relocating to Nevada, she earned a master’s in educational technology from Lesley University, and pioneered a Spanish immersion program for students at Mannion Middle School in Clark County School District. She has also worked with the talented high schoolers of Las Vegas Academy of the Arts in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Crawford moved to Colorado Springs in 2014, and joined District 49. She just started her third year teaching at Horizon Middle School, and has already received several education awards and recognitions, including Horizon Middle School's teacher of the year in 2016, while a nominee for the state-level award. She’s currently a board member for the Colorado Congress of Foreign Language Teachers, where she advocates for primary and secondary schools.
“We're doing all these great things in our class,” said Crawford, who works to ensure her curricula choices engage students in many ways. “We’re singing and we're dancing and we're reading and we're writing. But more than anything we're changing their outlook on the world and letting them know what an important role they have as global citizens … it's an amazing, amazing job."
When she’s not teaching, Crawford enjoys traveling, reading, camping, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, playing the piano and watching Little League baseball and Broncos football, as well as simply spending time with her family.