Congratulations Mrs. Mays!

One of the best but most difficult things to do at a school is to pick the Teacher of the Year. It is difficult because you have to choose 1 from a group of more than 50 wonderful teachers. This year was no different. The staff at Kennedy narrowed it down to 4 truly outstanding candidates, Tracey Hixson, Nicole Mays, Tonia Paramore, and Carrie Tilson. All 4 of them completed the application process for

County Teacher of the Year by turning in some of the most heart felt and fantastic narratives of why they teach. They brought tears to the eyes of some teacher of the year selection committee members as they read them. That was followed up by observations of what they do best, TEACH. The committee saw 4 outstanding lessons. In those lessons the committee saw teachers investing in the lives of students by engaging them and encouraging them. They saw adults who truly have a passion for what they do share that passion with our future. They shared this passion by presenting knowledge, skills, and standards to the students in ways that they could understand and apply. If there was a gap in their understanding, these wonderful ladies patiently filled those gaps by helping these students to make concrete connections to their lives. Whether it was Mrs. Paramore trying to help students learn how

to persuade by modeling her love for English peas (something she really despises), Mrs. Tilson bringing the Olympic games to the students so they can create their self-portraits, Mrs. Hixson helping students to really visualize their sentences so they can create “EXTRAORDINARY” sentences, or Mrs. Mays having an individualized lesson for each student, these teachers TAUGHT with excitement and passion and the students “got it” and LEARNED. The writings and lessons were all wonderful and ALL four of them deserved to be the Teacher of the Year, but only 1 can be chosen. After evaluating and discussing all of the wonderful things we saw and read, the committee came to a unanimous decision of selecting Mrs. Nicole Mays as Kennedy Elementary School’s Teacher of the Year for 2010-2011.

Nicole has been teaching Special Education at Kennedy Elementary School for 8 years and is also a former student at KES. Mrs. Mays, along with her instructional assistants Jane Pfefferle and Todd Anglin, have created a learning environment for her special needs children that allows each one of them to feel success at their own pace. Nicole incorporates technology into her lessons on a daily basis. She has been able to turn her white board interactive by using a Wii remote. This technology is

incorporated with other software to allow students to have audio/visual, tactile, and kinesthetic stimuli. Nicole is also innovative in how she has created a “Summer Camp” for her children. She takes time during the summer to meet on small group and individual basis with her children to expose them to many exciting learning experiences that support her students’ functional and social goals. This type of innovation and dedication allows her children to not only meet but exceed their goals. I

truly believe that we will be well represented by Mrs. Nicole Mays at the County Level. Congratulations!

I also want to take the time to thank our committee for all they did to make this selection possible. Mrs. Jane Hawkins from CBT Bank in Wal-Mart took half of her day to assist in our decision. I appreciate her support of Kennedy Elementary School. I would also like to thank Mrs. Dana Ballard, last year’s Teacher of the Year, for her help. It was wonderful to hear her insight into teaching as we made the decision.

Thanks needs to go to Dr. Gale Jordan, Assistant Principal, for her help in bringing expertise and professionalism to the decision process. Lastly, I need to thank Leigh Sears, Instructional Facilitator at KES and former Teacher of the Year, for her expertise and professionalism as we made our decision. Mrs. Sears is also the one responsible for organizing the entire selection process. She is the one who put together our schedule for observing, our packets to read, and made sure that we had lunch and breakfast available for our committee and the teachers. There is so much work that goes into making sure that this selection goes off without any problems, and Mrs. Sears did a wonderful job of doing it.