Outstanding Faculty -
Wendy Drexler, Lower Division

Wendy Drexler didn't start out her career as a teacher. In fact, she was working at Honeywell when she participated in a volunteer program to tutor at-risk high school students. It was then Mrs. Drexler realized she had a passion for teaching. She proceeded to get her Masters of Education at USF and then began teaching gifted students at a middle school in north Pinellas County. Bringing her business savvy to the classroom, Mrs. Drexler organized her class into its own business structure for a class project of designing the City of Safety Harbor's website. The "student" C.E.O. presented the website to the Mayor, and the class won the 1997 International Cyberfair award.

Mrs. Drexler left teaching when IBM "made her an offer she couldn't refuse" as an e-Learning Manager where she developed web-based training for the sales people in network services. After this position, she program managed the NBC Olympics website for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia.

When Mrs. Drexler moved to St. Petersburg in 2002, her son enrolled at Shorecrest. Although she had enjoyed teaching, Mrs. Drexler had not really considered returning to the classroom until she became a Shorecrest parent and saw how the school worked. Much to the school's delight, Mrs. Drexler became a faculty member of Shorecrest in 2004. Since then, she has been busy integrating the third grade curriculum with technology. After discussing the tragic Darfur situation with her students, they came up with the idea of doing a Darfur website (LINK) which garnered the attention of both the Florida Holocaust Museum and Amnesty International. Shorecrest is recognized on both of their websites.

Mrs. Drexler believes in technology as a tool to do amazing things in the classroom due to its unlimited resources. Because technology is always evolving, there is always something new to learn, and Mrs. Drexler is certainly learning her share as she continues her education at the University of Florida for a Ph.D. in Educational Technology.

"Shorecrest students are truly our future. Being future community leaders is a huge responsibility, and it is never too early for teachers to encourage students to realize and act on this responsibility. Teaching service learning through technology, in addition to the curriculum, makes me feel that I am doing my part in making a difference and giving back."