Education Spotlight: Statewide Recognition for Kendall Rogers, Agriculture Teacher at Caroline Middle School
"I like putting the kids up front and letting them shine," says Rogers, who was recently named Virginia Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts Conservation Teacher of the Year.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Kendall Rogers has known what she wanted to do with her life since she was in 6th grade at Caroline Middle School.
“I took agriculture in 6th grade, and I fell in love with it,” Rogers said. “The teacher did such a great job at making it fun and incorporating real, hands-on learning. I felt like I could truly learn something, because I wasn’t very good at the other stuff.”
Rogers is now in her fifth year teaching the same class that she fell in love with, at the same school. Though she wouldn’t say she does anything “above and beyond” what her job duties call for, she continues to earn local and statewide recognition for what she does—first as Caroline County’s Teacher of the Year for 2024-25, and now as the Virginia Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts Conservation Teacher of the Year for Secondary Education.
“In the classroom, Mrs. Rogers reaches students every day with information about natural resources, and their conservation and preservation,” a press release about the statewide honor states. “She has worked to develop a curriculum that exposes her students to traditional ‘textbook’ information, combined with hands-on experiences. Her infectious enthusiasm for her subject area and students make her classes some of the most popular in the Middle School.”
Rogers said she was one of only a few female students in the agriculture classes in middle and high school.
“My teachers both at middle and high school did a good job of keeping me engaged and reminding me that I do fit in, and I can do these kinds of things,” Rogers said.
That’s the kind of teacher she tries to be to her students now. Caroline is a rural county, but it’s also diverse and kids come to her classroom from many different backgrounds.
“We have kids who live on farms and kids who live in hotels,” Rogers said. “Kids who live in neighborhoods and kids who live in gated communities. Some kids know what a well is and others don’t. Some know what it’s like to not have power and some have never lost power.”
Bringing this diversity together and ensuring that everyone has an opportunity to experience something new and to shine is what motivates Rogers.
“You do have some [kids] that are hard to reach,” she said. “That can be difficult. But I do my best to make it hands on and make it fun. I tell the kids, ‘I can teach from a textbook every day, but I don’t want to do that, so let’s make it fun. Let’s go outside, let’s put our hands on things.’”
Caring for the multitude of classroom pets is part of the hands-on learning Rogers cultivates.
“Right now, we have three snakes, two guinea pigs, four rabbits, a hedgehog, and eight bantam chickens,” she said.
The chickens don’t lay often, but if they do, “we put the eggs in an incubator and when they hatch, the kids can adopt the chicks out,” Rogers said. “Same with the rabbits.” When this happens, the students get a lesson on genetics as well as animal husbandry.
Just as there are often surprises inside the classroom, the field of agriculture as a whole is constantly changing, Rogers said.
“There’s so much new technology now, not just for the teacher, but also in ag,” she said. “We have tractors that are self-driving, we have drones—there’s always changes.
And we are constantly finding out new stuff.”
Rogers loves both the challenge and the excitement of this changeability.
“No two days are the same,” she said. “You never know what’s coming.”
Outside of the classroom, Rogers has cultivated the largest Future Farmers of America chapter that Caroline County Public Schools has seen, according to the press release.
“In FFA, students have the opportunity to expand upon what they’ve learned in the classroom by participating in academic and skills-based competitions, while continuing to develop their knowledge of natural resources,” the press release states.
Rogers stressed that the recent recognition coming her way is bewildering because “I feel like what I’m doing is what everybody should be doing, so to get recognized for it—I feel like I didn’t do any more than anyone else.”
Still, she added, “It’s nice to have someone else toot my horn for me, because I’m not going to do it myself! I like putting the kids up front and letting them shine.”
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