OSCEOLA COUNTY – Mrs. Dawn Parker has been selected as the 2024 School-Related Employee of the Year for the Osceola School District. For the last five years, she has worked as Executive Secretary at Tohopekaliga High School. Her administrators, faculty and staff, parents, and students all resoundingly agree she is the backbone of the school, and her energy, positivity, and love for the school are both contagious and inspiring.
Principal George Arscott says that Mrs. Parker stands out because she positively drives the school’s outstanding culture each and every day. Mrs. Parker spends a large part of her day interacting and supporting students instead of sitting in her office, being visible as a cheerleader during every class change, uplifting students in the cafeteria during every lunch, and attending most after-school events to encourage students.
Her true professionalism, amazing work ethic, and dynamic interpersonal skills allow her to build relationships with all stakeholders and to act as a change agent to constantly make improvements to ensure student and staff successes. She prides herself on organizing and implementing new traditions at the school, such as the Black History Month Fashion Show production and the Staff Cultural Luncheon. Mrs. Parker’s smile and positive words of encouragement are the first things students and staff see and hear in the morning, and she is the last person they see when they leave the school well after the instructional day ends.
Mr. Arscott credits Mrs. Parker, who he describes as the definition of perfection, for making everyone at Tohopekaliga High feel like family. As his sounding board, thought partner, and as a constant pillar in the leadership of the school, she has profoundly positively impacted him as a leader, with him being named High School Principal of the Year for the Osceola School District in 2022-2023. He credits much of his own individual success to Mrs. Parker, his “right hand.”
“I am extremely proud of how Mrs. Parker represents Tohopekaliga High School and the Osceola School District as she continues to excel in her profession,” said Superintendent Dr. Mark Shanoff. “Her passion and professionalism, her support of students and staff, and her dedication make her the obvious choice for the Osceola School District’s School-Related Employee of the Year Award.”
Mrs. Parker will now represent Osceola County at the state level in the Florida Department of Education’s School-Related Employee of the Year judging.
