Most people only dream that, in the midst of their work day, their boss, the leaders of their company and their closest loved ones will interrupt their busy schedules to hand them $11,500 and personally tell them they’re doing a great job.
Last month, that scenario became a reality for 13 teachers in the Wasatch County School District who were given the organization’s annual Distinguished Educator of the Year Award.
The recognition is sponsored by the Wasatch Education Foundation, a branch of the district that works to raise funds for things like student scholarships, food programs and other school activities.
In order to be eligible for the award, teachers needed to be nominated by a student, parent, peer or other member of the community, to be at least a third-year teacher in the district and couldn’t have received the award within the past four years.
Ultimately, the 13 winners were chosen by WEF’s board members, which include several members of the community as well as members of the district’s leadership.
Over the past several years, WCSD’s board has voted for significant raises for their teachers in order to keep its schools well staffed and competitive. Still, $11,500 isn’t chump change even with a fair salary, and several teachers have talked about what the money — as well as the recognition in general — means for them personally and professionally.
Marjorie Keane
April was a busy month for Marjorie Keane. She not only started wrapping up her seventh year as a Spanish teacher in a dual-immersion language program at Daniels County Elementary School, she also was preparing to defend her thesis to earn her Master’s degree in Early Childhood. She had her birthday and, her family and teaching peers were planning the best kind of library-ambush for her — the kind with an $11,500 check.
“I knew nothing,” she said, remembering the surprise.
She was asked to go to the library with her dual-immersion teaching partner, and she immediately started worrying about her students and wondering what kind of trouble they might have gotten into.
“I’m really scared that something bad happened. They never call me,” she said. “I go to the library, and I look in and I see all my kids on one side. … I look to the right, and I see all these officials from the district.”
She’d seen the award granted to other teachers in the past. She started to realize what was happening but still wasn’t entirely convinced. Then, she found her husband in the crowd. That’s when the happy tears finally started flowing.
“When you see this happening to other teachers, you can’t help but to think of yourself on the bottom of the list. Maybe that will happen to you down the line when you’re in your 30th year teaching,” she said. “You know everybody in the building works so hard. … You know that everybody here deserves it.”
The feeling, Keane explained, is bittersweet.
“I felt special. I felt blessed, I’m grateful that that happened to me, but I can think off the top of my head of so many other teachers that I admire and respect,” she said. “They deserve it, too.”
Keane, who’s worked on the Spanish side of a dual-immersion partnership since beginning at Daniel County, talked about school the way school students might talk about summer vacation.
Now she feels inspired to double her efforts to be an asset and advocate for her students.
“I believe in myself, but clearly I don’t believe in myself enough,” she said. “This just makes me want to work harder. … You think so highly of me, I want to show you that I’m worthy of what you think of me. I’m ready to keep at it.”
Originally from Peru, Keane said her parents were planning on visiting this summer for the first time since she moved to the United States 17 years ago, even before she was given the recognition. Now, however, she plans to join them in the leg of their journey to Nashville to see her brother, and the quaint activities she was planning to do with her family have taken a drastic turn for more adventurous options with the help of the money.
She wants to surprise them in Nashville. It’s her turn to keep a secret.
Mary McKee
You’d be hard pressed to find a teacher who doesn’t try to make their classroom as inviting and learning-conducive as possible for their students, but if there were to be a competition, Rocky Mountain Middle School Resource and Reading teacher Mary Mckee would be a strong contender.
She explained her reading classes are for kids who need a little extra help to catch up with their peers, and students who are required to take the course subsequently lose an elective option, so she tries to make the atmosphere as welcoming as possible.
It was during one of those reading classes last month when she was paid a surprise visit by district leaders who let her know she’d been selected as one of this year’s distinguished educators.
“I had no idea, and my kids love to work with the lights off,” she explained.
All of a sudden, Rocky Mountain Middle School Principal Brian Thorne came through the door, flipped the lights on and guided a group into the room.
“I was like, ‘What’s going on?'” McKee remembered. “My husband was here, my parents were here and lots of people from the school district office, which was amazing. … These are busy people, so I thought that was incredible.”
Thorne explained to the students their teacher was getting a big award, and the situation finally started to make sense.
When Throne began teaching in the district, it was as a paraprofessional instructing kids during physical education courses at Midway Elementary School.
She left after about five months.
“I told the principal I love this, but if I’m going to work, I need to help my family and make some money,” she explained.
Not long after she left, her old principal urged her to become certified to teach. Now, she’s finishing her fourth year teaching.
As a resource and reading teacher, she spends a lot of time with small groups of students or working with them one-on-one and is able to see them continue to progress.
She fondly remembered one student whom she helped catch up to her peers to the point where she was able to leave her reading class and choose a different elective. Still, the student returned to excitedly tell McKee about her improved test scores.
“For me, that’s huge,” she said.
Despite successes like the one she shared and the immense support she said she receives from her administrators, she said she was grateful to be recognized because it showed her she’s on the right track as a resource teacher, a position with a high turnover.
“It’s a hard thing to do,” she said. “People don’t stick around a lot. … It was validating.”
She’s also experienced feelings of guilt when she’s had to put off helping her kids to fulfill her role as a teacher. Knowing they watched her be awarded for her hard work and sacrifices meant a lot to her.
The $11,500, she said, would in part fund a trip for her and her family.
“Our vacations are all like Moab, St. George, Bear Lake. It’s little day trips,” she said. “Some of my kids have never been on an airplane, and so I’m super excited. … We’re going somewhere with a beautiful beach.”
Charlene Dawson
When Wasatch High School Principal Justin Kelly and other administrators showed up in Charlene Dawson’s class with family members, great news and a nice check, they asked the students in the room how many of them nominated their teacher for the award they were presenting.
“A good eight of them raised their hands, and I was really touched by that,” she said. “Just in that one random class … so many had taken that time to do that.”
To her surprise, some of the students who had nominated her were the too-cool-for-school cowboy kids who usually kept to themselves.
“Some had really nice things to say at the end of class,” she recalled. “‘You deserve it.'”
Dawson, who has taught in the district since 2011, has not just been busy as an educator — though starting a psychology department at the high school over the past few years has certainly kept her on her toes — but also as a coordinator for several programs that provide food to students who might not get enough otherwise.
When she started at WCSD, she said the housing bubble had created an atmosphere where many teachers married to contractors were returning to work, and the candidate pool was competitive. Her first gig with the district was as an in-school suspension aid, where she sat in a room and waited for kids to get in trouble and join her.
“But the room was shared with a class called guided study, and so I was able to at least help kids and stay busy throughout the day,” she said. “The teacher of that position quit, so I applied for that, and I got in.”
Eventually, she was able to start instructing in social studies, a subject about which she’s more passionate.
Dawson said she’s taught in several school districts throughout the state, and she’s come to appreciate the support she receives as an educator by WCSD leaders. In other places, teachers could only print a certain amount of copies. Here, the district pays for recorded seminars. She feels she’s fairly compensated, and the distinguished educator award only helped her to feel more seen by the district for her efforts.
“I feel like I made it as a teacher,” she said. “I’m not quitting anytime soon.”