Veteran Southington Educator Named District's Top Teacher

Southington Public Schools

SOUTHINGTON, CT — With the countdown underway to the new school year, one Southington High School educator will go into it as the district's top teacher.

The Southington Public School District recently announced that Patricia Pettit, who teaches multilingual pupils at SHS, was named the 2024-25 Southington Teacher of the Year.

Chris Palmieri, the coordinator of the committee that chose her, said “although the decision was extremely difficult because we have such amazing teachers in our district, Mrs. Pettit stood out this year.”

She will be recognized at the 2024-25 staff convocation later this month.

Also, she will be recognized at a reception before a Southington Board of Education meeting in September at the town's municipal center.

Pettit has been teaching in Southington since Aug. 25, 2003, when she was hired as a language arts
teacher at Kennedy Middle School.

She then transferred to Southington High School as an English teacher on Jan. 27, 2014.

Pettit continued in that role until March 2023, when she began as an interim TESOL teacher
for the school district. TESOL stands for "teaching English to speakers of other languages."

Beginning on Aug. 28, 2023, she became a permanent TESOL teacher at SHS.

Pettit received her bachelor of science degree in English from Central Connecticut State University in New Britain in 1993.

She earned her master’s degree from the University of New Haven in 2003 and her 6th year in Educational Leadership from Quinnipiac University in 2018.

Most recently, she completed her Alternate Route to Certification for Teachers of English Learners in June 2023.

Meanwhile, she readily volunteers for committees and activities.

Pettit currently serves on SHS’s emotional intelligence committee and is the class advisor for the sophomore class, a position she will continue next year as she and her students move on to their junior year.

She was also an advisor for Kennedy Middle School’s newspaper and scrapbooking clubs and taught middle school language arts for Southington’s summer school for many years.

Pettit describes her educational philosophy as “creating a supportive and compassionate learning environment that grows resilient, motivated, and skilled lifelong learners."

"This starts by establishing strong and productive connections between teachers and students and their families to generate a whole-child, positive learning culture,” Pettit said.

She said, that as a TESOL teacher, she has the unique opportunity to support teachers and her students by providing them the resources they need to be successful.