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Region One Education Service Center (ESC) announced the teachers of the year last weekend, with Lyford Elementary fifth-grade teacher Enrique Ayala and McAllen ISD Homer J. Morris Middle School sixth-grade math teacher Alissa Shirah receiving the honors.

The two teachers were part of the 66 nominees representing 36 school systems at the annual Teacher of the Year ceremony on July 30 at the Region one ESC Conference Center in Edinburg.

In interviews with both teachers, each showed the passion that got them their awards and recalled the journey in life and their careers to get to this point.

Ayala, who teaches math and science, took home the Regional Elementary Teacher of the Year and will start his 12th year at Lyford CISD this fall.

“I felt overwhelmed, shocked, and basically undeserving,” he said. “Because we’re sitting there at the table and they call my name, and it’s like the movies, you feel like it’s a tunnel and you hear people talking but you’re like in shock. I felt my wife hug me and I was in shock. There’s a lot of amazing educators in the banquet hall and to be given the honor is something.”

Shirah received the Regional Secondary Teacher of the Year.

Shirah’s award marks the third year in a row for a McAllen ISD teacher to win the recognition and the 21st time since 1991.

“It feels surreal because I’ve been working a long time,” she said. “I started my first year of teaching in 1997, so I’m almost at 30 years. … It’s nice to be recognized for all of the hard work I’ve done over these years.”

Both teachers were honored by the award but downplayed their recognition while giving credit to all the other outstanding teachers that were nominated.

“Of course I feel unworthy,” Shirah said. “I know there’s a ton of great teachers out there and just to think that I’m one of them is really cool and humbling and in a good way.”

Teaching the same subject with devotion and enthusiasm for students, the two had different ways of getting into their careers.

Shirah recalled always wanting to be a teacher and even writing in a journal as a little girl about her dreams of being a pianist or an educator.

Going to college in East Texas, she would first try majoring in music, business, math and then settled on her childhood dream by studying education to be a teacher.

Starting her career in the Dallas area, Shirah constantly moved around the region while also taking a hiatus to raise her three children.

Along her journey, she moved to the Valley and taught at McAllen ISD before moving back to Dallas after three years.

Shirah and her family soon realized that they missed the Valley and have called it home ever since coming back in 2015.

Bouncing around from teaching elementary and middle school math, Shirah has found her home at Morris Middle School and will mark her 10th year at the campus this school year.

The upcoming school year also marks Shirah’s first school year since becoming cancer free.

“This (last) school year I had to have my head covered, I was completely bald, I had to draw on my eyebrows,” she said. “I didn’t want the kids to be upset. I didn’t want it to bother them. I wanted the kids to know I was OK because I felt like, even though I was sick, I felt like I was OK and wanted them to know that.”

With her last surgery taking place in March, she said she is still adapting with her new perspective in life and in the classroom.

Her 10th year is also special to Shirah since her oldest daughter will be teaching English at the same middle school, adding that she is honored that she would choose the same profession.

With the new school year for McAllen fast approaching, Shirah said she can’t wait for the first day of school, her favorite of the year.

“Just meeting the kids for the first time and setting those expectations, my goal every year is not the star scores, it’s getting these 11 and 12 year olds to love math, to look forward to math, to want to come into class and learn,” she said. “Because there’s always those kids that come in hating math and I’m like I’m going to change your mind.”

Ayala has a different story of how he became a teacher.

Being in the construction business for over 25 years, Ayala was asked by a friend who is a principal in Brownsville to come and read to students.

“I went in and I saw a bunch of parents sitting in the chair reading to the kids,” he said. “The kids seemed disengaged. When it was my turn, I got on the floor down with them. I started making the voices of the characters, all these silly noises, and they’re engaged. They liked what I was doing and I felt good. I walked out of there, I called my wife and I said I think I’m going to go back to school.”

Ayala said it shocked everyone when he said he wanted to go into education instead of architecture and engineering.

Going into his 12th year of teaching, the fifth-grade teacher said life has been great to him with amazing students and making an impact in the community.

Ayala said his main goal every year is to make kids accountable for their own learning.

“I value their opinion, and basically, I just want a safe place for them and unfortunately, some kids nowadays, that’s the only safe place they know, in the classroom,” he said. “I wanted them to know that it’s OK to make mistakes. I can tolerate mistakes, I accept mistakes, but I can’t tolerate you not trying. If you have trouble with fractions, I can help you. Me and you will get together and work on it. But lack of effort, I can’t fix that as much as I want to.”

Also being a mentor teacher for UTRGV students that work at the campus, Ayala’s main advice to the aspiring teachers is to come and leave school with a smile.

“Everything that I’ve accomplished, the teacher I am today, is just an accumulation of all the students who have gone to my classroom,” he said.

As regional teachers of the year, both educators were presented with a $1,750 check and advance to the Texas Teacher of the Year program with finalists announced later this month and the winners announced in October.