azdeo secretary

Jasmine Benton is an Arizona native, a 9th year public school dance educator, and the secretary to AzDEO. She attended Arizona State University, where she earned her Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in Dance, with a concentration in Dance Education. She graduated Summa Cum Laude and received the Outstanding Teacher Candidate Achievement Award in the area of Fine Arts. She was at Kino Junior High School for 7 years, and in that time, went from three tiny dance classes into the only full-time middle school dance program in the Mesa district at the time. We were the recipient of the AzDEO Dance Program of Excellence Award for 2020 – the first and only junior high in the state of Arizona to receive that recognition. She was also the recipient of the 2022 AzDEO Katherine Lindholm Lane Arizona Dance Educator of the Year Award. Jasmine currently runs the dance program at Sossaman Middle School in the Higley district, over in Queen Creek, and she couldn’t love it more.

Her teaching philosophy is that through positive reinforcement, all students can learn and better themselves for their futures. By actively participating in the physical activity and the creative arts present in dance, students can be impacted in and beyond the classroom. They can learn the importance of hard work, determination, perseverance, responsibility, respect, and so much more. They can develop their self -expression, creativity, confidence, and personal identities. They can understand what it means to empathize, communicate, and collaborate. They can love learning. She strives to cultivate a classroom environment that is safe, encouraging, and supportive so that students can try new things fearlessly, learn to believe in themselves, and lead one another. Jasmine knows from her own experiences that dance can make a powerful and meaningful difference in the lives of others, and she is excited to continue this work not only at Sossaman but as board secretary and as a proud representative of middle school dance as a whole.