A Culture of Service Jannette Gardner Supports the Next Generation of Students and Teachers

Growing up in Selma, Jannette Gardner (MA ’22, TC ’16, BA ’13) watched her parents scrape to make ends meet. She remembers “the hustle, the grind” and pitching in where she could as her mother and father cleaned laundromats, worked swap meets and sold handmade creations on holidays.

While the family didn’t have much, they always had something to give through service. Starting at age 5 or 6, Gardner spent summers helping teachers at her aunt’s year-round school in Parlier and later teaching Polynesian dance to students.

She learned face painting—simple images like a snowman or snowflake at first—and shared that skill at events over the years. “That is the culture of my family,” she says. “If we are ever needed, we are there to serve others.”

That belief only strengthened as Gardner completed her bachelor’s degree, teaching credential and master’s degree at Fresno Pacific University. While many factors went into her decision to become a Sunbird, the university’s foundational commitment to service was especially meaningful.

“God places us in all these different situations and experiences with other people,” says Gardner. “If you have something to give or you have a talent, or you have a passion, it was because God put you in that position to be able to serve someone.

“I feel like that because that is one of the focuses of Fresno Pacific. I was very intentional and very mindful of that when I became a teacher: I am here to serve kids, I’m here to serve the families and I’m here to serve the community.”

Beyond the basics

Today, Gardner is a fourth grade teacher at Malaga Elementary in the Fowler Unified School District—where she was named district Educator of the Year in March 2025. Located on the southern edge of Fresno, the school serves nearly 200 students in a tight-knit but disadvantaged community.

Gardner offers more than educational basics on campus. She has volunteered lessons in Polynesian dance—the moves, meaning and history—and is the school’s climate and culture director. In that role, she helps create engaging, inclusive experiences and events that range from Donuts with Grownups to Kindness Week.

One of her university mentors is Darrell Blanks, clinical associate professor of education and director of the multiple subject program. Gardner, he says, embodies the concept of redemptive service.

“She took her preparation and that call to service and she went back to the kids who represent what her life was like,” Blanks says. “She didn’t go out to make massive amounts of money somewhere—she went to serve the kids that were like her. I think you see that it was a calling for her.”

Early goals and a long road

In fact, Gardner knew from an early age that she wanted to be a teacher. Aunt Noemi Flores, a teacher in the Parlier Unified School District, was a huge inspiration.

“I used to see how she interacted with her staff and her kids, and the culture was so supportive and loving,” Gardner says. “I wanted to do those things for kids.”

Her family also prized education. Her father would show his hands, worn from hard work, and say: “This is why you get an education.” He labored in the fields as a young man but wanted the American dream and security for his children.

“All of that really molded me to serve others,” Gardner says.

While Gardner’s goal was clear, her path to college was not straight. After graduating Selma High School in 2008, she married at age 18 and was pregnant at 19 with her first son, Aiden. Her parents worried that Gardner wouldn’t finish her education, but she did complete her journey after years of perseverance.

First, she earned an associate degree at Fresno City College. That was followed by a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts in 2013, through the degree completion program, and a multiple subject teaching credential in 2016 she started three months after her second child, Ethan, was born. She completed her master’s degree in 2022 and was named an Outstanding Graduate by the university.

Getting support

Along the way, she leaned on family and her husband, Justin Gardner (BA ‘21), who sandwiched his studies at Fresno Pacific in between hers. “It was a village that helped me,” Gardner says.

She is grateful for the encouragement from FPU and its professors. During the degree completion program “is when I fell in love with Fresno Pacific,” Gardner says. The professors “were my champions, they wanted me to do well and succeed. You could feel the passion in their teaching.”

Blanks, for example, was supportive through personal challenges and beyond, including during some research focused on math—not Gardner’s best subject.

“To her credit, she took the thing that wasn’t her strength or her love and she made that into something that she could challenge and learn to overcome,” he says. “What a great example to her family, to the kids that she works with.”

To support the next generation of teachers as well as students, Gardner also has served as a mentor teacher for several years and now is part of the FPU’s Rural Teacher Residency Program. “Being able to mentor teachers so that they can come back and serve in those communities is the goal,” she says. “I was very excited that Fresno Pacific is providing this opportunity because it is my way of serving, too, and supporting a resident teacher.”

Supporting others

After growing up in a small community, Gardner also wanted to build her career in one. She worked briefly at other campuses but felt drawn to Malaga after interviewing at a job fair.

She remembers walking on the Malaga campus and seeing the elementary school’s mural and green grounds. “I felt that feeling: This is where I belong,” Gardner says.

Gardner is an example of why the teaching program’s students are well-respected in the community, Blanks says. “Jannette embodies what makes them highly regarded, and that is a deep and genuine compassion to serve as a teacher and to face your own challenges in that service. That’s what makes the difference.”

She always talks about her class and work “from a vantage point of finding pure joy in that service and not to her own end, but just for the kids that she’s serving,” he adds.

God has been with her through life’s challenges, Gardner says, while Fresno Pacific and its professors also have been a critical support. The university’s commitment to service reinforced her dedication and approach to her chosen profession.

“Yes, I’m a teacher,” she says. “I teach academics but I also help my families. I help my kids. I consider the community—it’s not just academics… I feel like that is really who I am as a teacher.”