Over this summer, one of the agricultural educators at North Harford made the decision to leave Maryland and move to Tennessee for another job opportunity, closer to family. This decision has left many ag students wondering about the effect that this will have on the magnet program.

According to the secretary of North Harford’s FFA chapter, senior Jess Ruszkiewicz, Jacqueline Smith will be very missed during this upcoming school year.

“She cared a lot about her students, she made us all feel like we were a part of the class, and she always came up with things or sayings to help us remember what we had to learn,” said Ruszkiewicz.

Although Smith wasn’t an official member of FFA, she helped orchestrate many of the events that the NHHS chapter has hosted.

“Mrs. Smith always came to the barn after school hours to care for the animals. Her dedication to our program never ceased to amaze us, she really gave us the motivation to succeed,” said senior ag student Rachael Griffin.

Smith was also involved with the Geographic Information System (GIS) classes at NHHS.

“She taught GIS, and was the only one that was technically qualified to teach the course,” states Ruskiewicz. “I don’t know if they are planning on having that class still or not, but if not, that’s going to have a huge impact on the GIS students.”

The senior ag students in particular are worried about this upcoming year, because they planned their capstone projects with Smith at the end of last year, and now have to move forward without her. These capstone projects are essential because they culminate the academic and intellectual experience of students, according to edglossary.org.

“Mrs. Smith played a large part in teaching the animal strand in the magnet program. There is going to be a new replacement. These students will be greatly affected, the seniors from the animal strand especially, because we have had her all three years,” said Ruszkiewicz.” Now it’s going to be different without her personality and teaching style… not to mention how complicated our capstones are going to be without her.”

As the agricultural students are preparing for this school year, they are already missing Smith, and wondering how school will be different without her.

“In high school, you always want to have that teacher that you can go to, to talk about anything, any time. For me, Mrs. Smith was that teacher. I don’t know what we’ll do without her next year,” said Griffin.