Jordan Sawyer

In 2011, while struggling in college, I became the interim band director at Westglades Middle in Parkland, FL. It was messy, insane, difficult, and the hardest work I ever loved. Many of those students I worked with have gone on to to become professional musicians or educators themselves; this was my first teaching job and inspired me to pursue education full time.

I became the Band director of Forest Glen Middle School in 2012 in Coral Springs and during my time there ballooned the program to over 200+ students, achieved consistent superior assessment ratings, sat dozens of students in honor ensembles, and was nominated for a teacher Grammy.

In 2015 I moved to Jacksonville and established a band program at Kernan Middle school where they'd gone without music performance for over decade. In a year and a half we went from 72 students to several hundred! I was also elected to help design the end of course exam for music - sorry, if you're from Jacksonville! That was totally my fault...

In 2016 I had the opportunity to return to South Florida and worked at Walter C. Young Middle School in Pembroke Pines. During my time there we built 3 band classes into 5 and went from ~100 to 200 in a single year and  we achieved consistent superior ratings at music assessments.

I was offered the chance to work in Central Texas at Decker Middle School in 2019 and jumped at the adventure: unfortunately, the pandemic halted our year, but I had the opportunity to work with phenomenal teachers and students!