Three local educators received quite the surprise Wednesday.
USD 253 Emporia district administrators and staff at Emporia Middle School convened just before the start of the school day Wednesday morning for the first announcement where Misty Lawson was named as the district’s Kansas Teacher of the Year Secondary nominee. Lawson is an eighth-grade English and language arts teacher at EMS where she has been since
Lawson tells KVOE News she has been present for many of these surprise announcements in the past. She says it came as quite the shock when it was her name being called this year.
Shortly after Lawson’s announcement, attention shifted to Emporia High School where Martha MacKay was announced as the district’s Kansas Master Teacher nominee. MacKay is an Honors chemistry and physical science teacher at Emporia High who has spent the past seven years with USD 253 following more than a decade at Hartford where she taught from 2004 to 2016.
MacKay says this nomination shows her that her approach to education and the passion she has for her students has not gone unnoticed.
Also, Riverside first-grade teacher Megan Powers received the district’s elementary Teacher of the Year nomination. She’s taught at Riverside for 16 years, and she has stayed at the school for two main reasons:
The Kansas Master Teacher Program is organized by Emporia State University. Teachers must have at least seven years of classroom experience in a Kansas school.
For Teacher of the Year, the Kansas State Department of Education receives nominations from all four of the state’s Congressional districts and then appoints regional selection panels to choose six semifinalists per region, three each at the elementary and secondary level. The regional finalists are then narrowed to the two winners.
