New Chelan Agriculture Education Teacher and FFA Advisor

CHELAN – After teaching for seven years away from home in East Wenatchee and Oregon, Bailey Dezellem found her way closer to her family in Brewster, as the new CTE Agriculture Education teacher and FFA Advisor for Chelan High School.

“A couple of people in the community asked me to apply and kept asking me to apply. I met a lot of the kids, I’ve known them through fairs and it’s a smaller community which I really like. It’s a good fit from Brewster and East Wenatchee,” she said.

Growing up in farm and raising livestock, she learned a lot of from her mom and dad, who are agriculture teachers. “I was able to watch of them and learn from both of them and that has been a really cool opportunity.”

At WSU, Dezellem majored in Agricultural Education “it was a little of taking what I already knew and deepening that knowledge and trying to be better every day.”

Ag ed has a three component model in which students are provided with opportunities for leadership, personal growth and career success.

“Around here a lot of kids work in the orchards or show at fairs because of the resources that are available,” said Dezellem.

The goal of Ag Ed is to produce the next leaders of tomorrow, “Ag is a little bit of everything and that is the beauty of it.”

Dezellem “likes being able to see the kids find something they get excited about … opportunities for kids to take pride in something they have done is so cool to me.”

This year she is planning to make the classroom her own, “the FFA side of things to me is a student organization so what the students want to do with it is more up to them I am there to advise them and push them to be successful.”

As the FFA advisor she would love to see many more kids spark some interest in FFA, “let’s see where this takes us over the next couple of years,” said Dezellem.

So far her relationship with the students has been good and with the school district’s staff has been nice, helpful and wonderful she said.  

Her goals this year include making sure she gets to know her students, let the community know she is there as a resource, have high standards in and outside the classroom and create high quality students.