BLOUNTSTOWN, Fla. (WMBB) — Some teachers have books to help guide their students. Others have measuring cups, like Blountstown High School’s Culinary Teacher Samantha Taylor.

However, Taylor isn’t too worried about a recipe going wrong. It’s the life lessons taught in Taylor’s kitchen classroom that make her this week’s ‘Class Act.’

Blountstown High Schoolers like Paola Flores have been re-taking culinary class year after year– not because of the food.

Lead chef Samantha Taylor’s secret ingredient is love.

“She’s a really good teacher but I also feel like she’s there for us as a person too and she actually cares about us genuinely,” Flores said. “She’s always like ‘you can talk to me about anything’ or if we have something we want to tell her she’s all ears. She just always listens to us.”

Taylor’s been teaching in Blountstown since 2006. She started out sharing her passion for history but now she finds herself in the kitchen with a mix of 9th, 10th 11th, and 12th graders.

Taylor has taken the program to another level.

“We cater events in our community and extended community,” Taylor said. “We cater weddings and class reunions and parties and that kind of stuff.”

Students have the opportunity to cook, serve and interact with ‘customers’ this way– providing them with the necessary skills to work in the food industry.

But Taylor said most importantly this class is a gentle distraction.

“We don’t know what our students have to face when they go home so just keeping it upbeat, keeping it busy, keeping it where they might not have to think about what’s going on at home when they come into this classroom,” Taylor said.

The recipes will forever make an impact on these students’ stomachs. It’s Taylor who will forever make an impact on their hearts.

“She raised me pretty much like being here,” Student Addisyn Dykes said. “I’m comfortable in there and I can just go in and we’ll sit on the couch and talk to her like we tell her everything.”

If you know a school employee who you think is a Class Act – make sure to nominate them today.