Jennifer Clements won the Allen High School Teacher of the Year, and Allen ISD Secondary Teacher of the Year for 2016. This is her 13th year at Allen High, and her 15th year of teaching.

“To say I was shocked was an understatement,” Clements said. “It was truly one of the most humbling things; I literally had no words. There are people here that, as far as innovation and classroom management, I look up to and think the world of and hands down, are better than me. I am so grateful people put my name on a ballot.”

Clements teaches PALs 1 and 2 and also teaches Spanish 1. She grew up in Grapevine, Texas, and lived in Allen for a couple of years before moving to Plano. She smiled and said she has always liked working with kids, laughing as she reflected on how she used to play school growing up with her little brother.

“[The kids] make you laugh, and they make you want to spit fire sometimes,” Clements said. “They are what I love. I don’t have kids of my own, so these kids become my kids. Some of them I have known since freshman year, some I have known since third grade at volleyball camp. I watch them grow up. It’s the kids that make it not even a job, but just fun.”

Clements describes in detail how her days are each different according to her schedule. She goes to eight different schools each week, always prepared with more than 400 games in her trunk, to supervise her students working with at Curtis Middle School and seven different elementary schools (including Rountree, Evans, Boon and Lindsey Elementary). In the afternoon she usually arrives to Allen High around 11 o’clock to teach Spanish 1.

“I love people,” Clements said. “I love hearing people’s stories. Even little kids are hilarious to me, they are just so compassionate. The kids in high school are just the same, they have the same hearts. Their problems are a little different, the things they are dealing with are different, but they are just little kids inside. I just love hearing people’s stories and building relationships with them.”

Clements said she values the Allen community and Allen High School’s innovation and good classroom management. She reaches out to future teachers with advice on what will keep them going as well as what it means to be a kid at heart.

“[What it means to be a kid at heart] is to be adventurous, to be curious, to laugh a lot, to be grateful and to find the positives,” Clements said. “Bring a really good sense of humor, you will need it, never stop learning, and find those people you can look up to in all areas. I am reminded [and continually learning] from my kids to be grateful every day and to always be a kid at heart.”

“Education is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know.” ~ Daniel Boorstin

“Dreams come a size too big so that we can grow into them.” ~Josie Bisset

“Good teachers are the ones who can challenge young minds without losing their own.” ~Author Unknown

“A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.” ~Roald Dahl