Welby principal honored for student advocacy

By Julie Slama | [email protected]

Maybe it was embracing new programs, such as Battle of the Books, as she did with FIRST Lego League in the past. Or maybe it was supporting a teacher’s push to find the best way to help a kindergartner be able to see his lessons. 

Or maybe it is just what she’s done for years: attend school functions, be there for students before and after-school as well as on the playground, lunch room or reading a book to them.

Whatever may have prompted the Jordan Association of Elementary School Principals committee, Welby Principal Jennifer Fisher is grateful to accept their Student Advocate Principal of the Year award.

The honor is one of seven the association awarded this past spring. Fisher received a wooden plaque. 

This is her first principal award.

“I’m surprised,” Fisher said. “We don’t toot our own horn, but it’s just amazing, and I appreciate that I’m being thanked.”

Fisher has been principal at Welby for the past seven years and was an assistant principal before that at both Welby and Hayden Peak elementary schools. She also taught 14 years at Jordan Ridge Elementary before overseeing the gifted and talented program in the Jordan School District’s office.

“I love anything that pushes kids to excel,” she said. “Our dual language immersion program is just amazing. It brings new ideas and adds to our overall diversity and challenges our students.”

Among her teaching awards, in 199697, she was named Jordan School District Educator of the Year and won a debate coach award in 2008. She was named NASA educator in 1999 and NASA Aerospace Teacher of the Year in 2002 and had the opportunity to spent two weeks at Johnson Space Center in Houston.