(CEDAR HILL, TEXAS) Cindy Bauter retired from a school district on the other side of Joe Pool Lake after 26 years of service.
She wasn’t quite ready for retirement, though.
“I needed a change,” said Bauter, the Highlands Elementary Cedar Hill STEM Teacher of the Year Finalist. “I needed to know if the grass was greener on the other side, and it is.”
Bauter has taught at nearly every elementary school grade level, but she’s teaching Fourth-Grade Math and science for the first time.
“We are developing a science lab, which will debut at Highlands STEM Night on March 26,” Bauter said. “Cedar Hill ISD has been so generous, and they’ve been very welcoming ever since new teacher orientation.”
This is the third science lab that Bauter has set up in her career. Over the years, she’s taken many STEM-related professional development courses at Region 10. She also operated a garden, which she’d like to bring to Highlands, if possible.
“I’ve grown a lot since the first time I opened a science lab,” Bauter said.
A Wisconsin native, Bauter moved to the Metroplex as a teenager. She studied Pre-Law at the University of Texas at Arlington but decided to pursue teaching after substituting when her son was young.
She started in English Language Arts but moved toward science after a principal asked her to create a science lab.
She remembers her struggles in mathematics as a child and keeps that in mind when instructing scholars.
“I enjoy showing kids that math isn’t so hard,” Bauter said.
If she wins the CHISD STEM Teacher of the Year award, Bauter plans to use the $5,000 campus prize to “encourage science” with more field trips to the zoo, arboretum, flight museum, and swampland. The CHISD STEM Teacher of the Year award will be announced at the Leadership & Service Awards on May 9.
“The scholars are constantly learning through osmosis,” Bauter said.
Bauter would also invest the personal prize money into the classroom.
