Area teachers celebrated at Golden Apple Awards

Forty public and private school teachers from Charlottesville and Albemarle County were recognized Wednesday for their excellence in the classroom.

 

Sponsored by Better Living Building Supply & Cabinetry, the Golden Apple Awards honor outstanding teachers of any discipline, at any grade level. Parents, students, colleagues and community members nominate the teachers to the selection committee, which selects one educator from each school.

 

“We get some one-sentence things that are obviously written by a second-grader that are really great,” said John Baldino, co-chairman of the selection committee. “We know this kid obviously loves their teacher.”

 

Kevin Castner, superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools from 1995 to 2005, also co-chaired the selection committee.

 

 “When a community shows that it recognizes the value of education and the importance it brings to the children in the community, this makes a statement,” he said.

 

Golden Apple winners are selected for their ability to create a love of learning in students of all abilities and backgrounds, to stimulate thought and dialogue among students and to challenge them to reach high standards and expectations.

 

Nominees also are evaluated for their ability to understand and meet the needs of students and their involvement of families in the education process.

 

Eight of the winners were chosen at random to receive $1,000 grants for classroom materials, educational programming or professional development.

 

Justin Stauffer, the 2018 winner from Crozet Elementary School, teaches fifth-grade math and science.

 

“Crozet is a great place to teach,” Stauffer said. “It’s nice to work with a small community like that.”

 

For several years, students in Stauffer’s class have built RIFFLEs — remote water quality meters made with open-source hardware — to monitor the Beaver Creek Reservoir and other streams near Crozet. 

 

Stauffer said he got the idea for the project from conversations with students about the ongoing water crisis in Flint, Michigan.

 

“Albemarle is the most innovative school district I have been in,” Stauffer said. “There is an emphasis on viewing students as individuals who can facilitate their own learning.”

 

Stauffer said he was surprised and excited to learn he had won a Golden Apple Award.

 

 “In a big school district like this, it means a lot for peers and parents to recognize you,” he said 

 

Latoya Brown, the winner from Buford Middle School in Charlottesville, came to the school this year after teaching at Walker Upper Elementary School. She was able to follow some of her students from Walker to Buford as they moved from sixth grade to seventh grade.

 

“When those students felt lost, they all came to me,” Brown said. “I think that’s been the best part of this entire year.”

 

Brown said she knew she wanted to be a teacher at an early age; she enjoyed pretending to be one while “playing school” with her cousins as a child. 

 

“You’ve got to have a passion for teaching, because you definitely are not going to do it for the money,” Brown said.

 

In her opening remarks, Albemarle Superintendent Pam Moran noted that, while Wednesday’s awards ceremony was taking place, thousands of teachers in North Carolina were rallying for salary raises and school funding. The protest in Raleigh followed similar demonstrations by teachers in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Colorado and Arizona this year. 

 

“We are honoring you at a time when teachers in other parts of the country are really feeling the struggle,” Moran said. “While we all feel that things need to be better for educators, in this community, we have people … who are willing to step up to honor our educators.”

 

Moran thanked Richard Nunley, chairman of the board of Better Living, and his wife, Judy, for sponsoring the awards since 2000.

 

Moran will retire on June 30, and current Deputy Superintendent Matt Haas will replace her. But Moran said that she and other educators at the ceremony would never leave their profession behind. 

 

“You will own your profession forever, because you teach from your hearts and not just from the books,” she said. 

 

The 2018 Golden Apple Award winners are: