Every year, three semifinalist teachers in Wando are elected for the potential of receiving the Teacher of the Year award. The award itself is meant to appreciate the efforts of hardworking teachers and uplift them for all they have accomplished during their time spent instructing.
Principal Charles Coker organizes the process for electing the winner each year.
“First, we send out a nomination form to the teachers,” Coker said. “Each of them write their reasoning for nominating one another, and we review those forms before sending them to the electees. If they reply that they want to be a part of the ballot, we send out an initial bout with those nominees, before collecting the top three and running the final vote.”
This year, the top three teachers are Ashley Wyrick, Diane Krishon and Kailey Keels. All of them have taught at Wando for several years, and currently stand as potential candidates to receive the award.
“They represent the best and the brightest here at Wando,” Coker said. “They are student-driven. They are innovative in what they do. They constantly try to hone their craft to do what’s best for their kids. They are the finest that we have here on campus.”
Wyrick was hired into Wando several years ago, teaching simpler classes like 2D Design and traditional art. Soon, she found herself advocating for new courses such as 3D Art and AP Art History to be brought forth to students as well.
“What’s so exciting about the arts is that it can bring together all types of people from different backgrounds and different interests,” Wyrick said. “Whether it be gender, or culture–we all come together.”
Krishon had been teaching at Wando for a while longer, starting out with regular biology before writing a course for Wildlife Biology to take flight. With her new class, she found herself accepting a new onslaught of interested students.
“I believe that it’s really important for people to understand how the world works from a habitat perspective,” Krishon said. “We are not separate from nature, and I think not enough people understand how closely our health and well-being are dependent on the well-being of the habitats around us. So my goal is to help people understand that they have decisions–and the power to influence their surroundings.”
Keels had been an educator at five different schools before she began at Wando. She taught a variety of subjects, but ended up prominently teaching AP Spanish Language due to the interesting students who would take the course.
“When you first start, you think that because you’ve been a student, that you understand what it is to teach,” Keels said. “You don’t. And for novice teachers, it’s very difficult, myself included. You really have to learn how to engage students, how to relate to them as people, and learn how to give academic feedback that is useful to them. There’s just so many aspects to teaching.”
In the end, each of the teachers work to help their students in the subjects that they teach. The award might only be for one of them, but the fact that they were all potential candidates for such a trophy is already a huge honor.
“It’s one of the best awards we have in the school district,” Coker said. “I’m proud of them all, and I’m excited to see who’s going to win–but honestly, we really couldn’t pick a bad one out of the bunch.”
