- September 5, 2026
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When Josie Nemeth attended Lakewood Ranch High School as a student, she was anti-school pride.
“I was an art student, that was my crowd,” Nemeth said. “You wouldn't catch me dead at a pep rally, you wouldn't catch me dead at a football game and you wouldn't catch me dead wearing a Lakewood Ranch shirt.”
Six years after graduating from the school, Nemeth is now a social studies teacher at the very same school. She wants to connect with her students, so she is taking an interest in extracurricular activities, including who competes in athletics in order to support them
“I went out to Walmart as soon as I got the job and got the Lakewood Ranch shirt,” Nemeth said. “I’m embracing school pride because that's definitely something I was lacking when I was here as a student.”
The path to her college diploma and then to the classroom as a teacher was not without hardship. In 2024, Nemeth survived a severe car accident that left her with a broken left lemur, broken right arm and a shattered right ankle.
“I don't remember it, not because I was intoxicated or anything like that,” Nemeth said. “It just was so traumatic, my brain wiped it out.”
Despite a long recovery — four months in a wheelchair, skin grafts, surgeries and modified class schedules — Nemeth kept her goal in sight. Although it took six years to graduate from University of South Florida, it wasn’t a matter of if she would. It was a matter of when.
“I told myself 10 years ago I was going to be a teacher,” Nemeth said. “I'm going to be a teacher. I never wavered on that end goal.”
She adjusted how she teaches to manage pain and mobility limitations.
Nemeth grew up in the “Lakewood Ranch bubble” and attended Willis Elementary School and R. Dan Nolan Middle School before attending Lakewood Ranch High. She had dreams of living the “big city life” and never really considered sticking around.
Over the last six years, Nemeth has traveled to 13 countries. As a history buff, she had seen certain landmarks in Power Point slides over and over. The experience was completely different when seeing them in person. It was awe-inspiring.
Nemeth especially enjoys going to countries that might not always be considered travel destinations, such as Morocco, Egypt and Mexico.
"I love the idea of using my travel experience to decriminalize these countries and their (her students') minds because ultimately, in my opinion, if you have a negative view on a whole country, it's going to affect how you view the people from those countries," Nemeth said. "I'm big on promoting this idea that you know people from different backgrounds or different places that look different from your own. There's nothing wrong with them."
Life, relationships and the right opportunity steered her home. When she was looking for her first full-time job as a teacher, Lakewood Ranch popped up.
Matthew Nemeth, Josie's younger brother, is a sophomore at Lakewood Ranch High School. With their 9-year age gap, Matthew was excited to hear Josie would be teaching at his school.
Despite the school year just beginning, Matthew has lended a hand to Josie to help set up her classroom and fix a wobbly table.
"I hope she does well," Matthew Nemeth said. "I hope she found a path that she would like to do for the rest of her life. I hope she has fun and makes friends with the other teachers and students."
Nemeth prides herself on knowing she wanted to be a teacher since sixth grade. Before landing on social studies, Nemeth played around with the ideas of being an art teacher or an orchestra teacher.
History has always been something that fascinated Nemeth. She saw it as a “grand story” with battles, amazing stunts and events that seemed like they happened a long time ago.
“We were talking about the Greeks and their sculptures, the Romans and their conquests, the Egyptians and their pyramids and their mummies,” Nemeth said. “It seemed very fascinating and fantastical.”
Nemeth said there are two particular educators, who still work at the school, who inspired her love for social studies. Samantha Biggs is now an assistant principal, and Benjamin Hall teaches two advanced placement classes — U.S. Government and Politics and Macroeconomics.
“My next door neighbor in my classroom is my old history teacher (Hall),” Nemeth said. “It did come full circle in a poetic way.”
Hall said Nemeth was a natural history student and was of his highest scoring students. She was not however a natural at economics. She had to work extra hard in macroeconomics her senior year.
Intelligence and work ethic are two characteristics Hall appreciates in both his students and fellow teachers and he sees them in Nemeth.
“So far as a teacher she is doing all the right things, forming relationships with her students and colleagues,” Hall said. “It is sometimes difficult for first year teachers to adjust to find their stride but Josie has all the makings of an excellent teacher.”
