2021-22 BCSD Teacher of the Year Seticia ‘Coach T’ Smith dies at 36

Published 2:25 pm Friday, June 21, 2024

Seticia Smith, known to the Baldwin County School District community as Coach T and the 2021-22 district Teacher of the Year representing Oak Hill Middle School, has passed away. She was 36.

“It is with heavy hearts and great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved instructional coach, Ms. Seticia Smith. Ms. Smith, affectionately known as Coach T, loved her Oak Hill family and her Baldwin Braves,” Oak Hill Middle posted on social media Thursday.

Slater’s Funeral Home is in charge of the local arrangements. As of Friday afternoon, no service time had been released.

Smith was an instructional coach at Oak Hill Middle at the time of her passing. She was also a seventh-grade math teacher and coached basketball and track and field. Smith had to resign her athletic coaching positions after a biopsy showed stage 3 aggressive cancer. This occurred after she was named Teacher of the Year at the annual banquet held in November, 2021.

Surgery followed, as did chemotherapy treatments. Smith told the story to The Union-Recorder during Breast Cancer Awareness Month in 2022 how some of her fellow Oak Hill teachers shaved their heads in support of her after her long dreadlocks fell out.

“I was still pressing through, trying to go to work. I would have treatments on Thursdays, and I would be out on Fridays. Then I go to work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Do the best I can. Made videos for my students. I would stop by and try to teach a lesson. I would teach the sub a lesson so he could teach the students. It was the middle of the year when I was going through all of this, and it was coming to the end of the year. I wanted to make sure they had enough instruction so they could take the Georgia Milestone and do well,” Smith said during her interview.

Smith had another operation in July 2022 to remove what was left of the cancer.

“It seems like I was at the highest peak of my life, and in a split second everything just changed. Being Teacher of the Year for the school district, that’s big, major. I was part of the Baldwin High School basketball coaching staff, and they made it to the Final Four. I was in and out of the hospital at that time,” she said.

“I love making a difference in young adolescents’ lives. I’m originally from Baxley. When I was a student, I used to love my math teachers for some reason. They just seemed to care more. They focused on what we knew, not necessarily what we didn’t know. That’s how I teach now. I build upon their knowledge. I don’t focus much on their weaknesses … try to get them to like math more. Middle school students hate math. It’s hard. They can’t do it. When they come into my class, they make comments, ‘You make math easier. I’m beginning to like math. It’s not as hard as I thought it was.’ It’s just following steps, and I break it down and go at their pace.

“I used to teach math to my basketball teammates in high school. I just fell in love with teaching and seeing the outcome of them passing a test or a quiz. I love being around (my students), growing with them. There is some trend going on and I learn from them. I learned TikTok from them. They keep me young; that’s what I say.”