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Saints!

Thursday
March 28th, 2024

actual usd 480 logo ELLY GRIMM • Leader & Times

 

The teachers working in USD 480 do a great job day after day in their respective buildings and now, people in the community have a way to thank them for their work during the past year. 

Nominations for the USD 480 Teacher of the Year are currently being accepted by the district, and USD 480 Director of Elementary Education Lana Evans said she is excited to see who gets nominated for this year. 

“Nominations opened Monday and we will be taking nominations through March 6. The nomination form is on our Web site, usd480.net, and is available in English and Spanish and can be submitted through our Web site, it's a very easy process,” Evans said. “Community members, parents, basically anyone who wants to nominate our teachers for the USD 480 Teacher of the Year will be able to do so. It's a very simple form for people, it's not too hard or time-consuming, and people can nominate a teacher that helped them or their child. It's about recognizing our teachers here in the district and the great work they do day in and day out, and we encourage everyone in the community to nominate someone in our schools if they so wish. Then after everything is looked at we'll be announcing all the building winners probably near the end of March.”

The nominations are open to everyone, Evans added. 

“It's not just the community who can nominate someone, I'd also love to see teachers nominate other teachers since they see each other in action day after day and know what they go through,” Evans said. “I'd love to see a lot of nominations, it's a great way for teachers to receive that affirmation of how they're doing a great job and let them know how much they're appreciated. And you can nominate someone based on a way they helped you or your child in school at some point. This is a great way to show that appreciation and no one makes any money or anything special from being nominated, it's a great pat on the back for our teachers since they do so much great work for the community and the district. The nominations have only been open since Monday, so we haven't yet looked to see how many responses we've gotten yet, but we will definitely keep track of that as these next couple weeks go on, and I would love to see how many people actually send in nominations.”

Overall, Evans said, her favorite part about the Teacher of the Year process for USD 480 is reading all the nominations for the different teachers. 

“The best part is reading the nomination forms and seeing what people say about our teachers because not only is it great to read that nomination form in general, there are also some cool things we learn about some of our teachers in the district we might not have known about,” Evans said. “It's very challenging picking our nominees because I feel like all of our teachers should get it. It's also really exciting when we get all the teachers together and tell them they've officially been recognized as a building teacher of the year. And it's great for us as the district administration to officially thank them and praise them for everything they do for us and the community. It's great every year seeing who's nominated, we've had some teachers who have been nominated for this more than once, which is amazing. So it'll be interesting for this year to see who all gets recognized.”

And with so many great teachers and staff working in the schools, Evans said she expects many nominations for this year.

“I'm expecting a lot of nominations, hopefully we'll get a bunch from each building, that would be amazing and like I said earlier, it's great to read all the different things people say about our teachers and see that support for our district,” Evans said. “And with the way the nomination forms are set up, since they're very easy, we're hoping to see a lot of people tell us about either a teacher they had or a teacher their child currently has. There's nothing to be mailed in or anything like that, it can all be done online through our Web site. I really appreciate the word being spread about this and we can't wait to read what people have to say about our teachers, we have a lot of great staff members throughout USD 480 and we want to use this as a way to thank them for everything they do. Our form is very easy to fill out and very accessible to everyone, there's no pressure in filling this out and we want everyone to have the chance to fill out a nomination form.”