Jackson Free Press

Erika Iguobadia, 35, believes in challenging her seventh-grade students at Northwest Middle School in Jackson.

In her classroom, she stresses the importance of choices and dealing with both the benefits and consequences of those choices.

"There are tools you need to have and skills you need to develop to be successful," she says. "There have to be reasons behind the decisions students make. They are their choices, and (the decisions) have to make sense for them."

In 2008, she received her associate's degree in banking and financial services from Nashville State Community College. The Cincinnati, Ohio, native and Charles Iguobadia, her husband of six years, traveled to Jackson in 2009. She received her bachelor's degree in business education from Jackson State University in 2014, and she is currently working on her master's degree in teaching.

Before going into education, Iguobadia worked in banking and finances for 13 years. While it started as just another job, she quickly developed a love for banking. She worked at Fifth Third Bank, one of the largest in Ohio, from 2001 to 2007, when she transferred to the Nashville, Tenn., branch. In 2008, she worked at SunTrust Bank in Nashville for one year. She credits her time in banking as a period that developed her communication and verbal skills and ultimately prepared her for her future involvement in classrooms.

In Jackson, she found a job at the Trustmark National Bank. During this time, Gov. Phil Bryant promoted the "Banker in Every Classroom" Initiative, in which bankers could visit surrounding public schools and promote financial literacy to students. Iguobadia jumped at the chance. Shortly after joining the program, she realized she wanted to do it full time. "I worked with (Jackson Public Schools) and Clinton schools, and I loved it, but they wouldn't make it my real job. I felt like this was something I just had to do," Iguobadia says.

"So I went back to school to pursue education. I hated to leave the bank, but when I was in that classroom, I just knew. It was what I wanted—no, needed—to do."

Trustmark assured Iguobadia that if she just waited a little longer, they could make a permanent arrangement for her in the schools. However, she couldn't wait any longer.

She says the transition to Northwest, her bank's community school, was easy because she was able to network and grow strong bonds with other teachers and administrators.

Originally, Iguobadia taught Approaches to Learning, but she now teaches language and literature. She says she loves working with her students because they teach her as much as she teaches them.

"I don't want to toot my own horn, but I love what I do, and I am good at what I do because I love it," Iguobadia says.