Three Apple Valley teachers, teacher assistant win state awards
Hendersonville Times-News
“Team Fortitude,” a teaching team of three eighth-grade teachers, and a teacher assistant from Apple Valley Middle School have been recognized by the North Carolina Association for Middle Level Education for their outstanding performance in middle level education.
The team - Ashley Ruzich, Jessica Reid and Donna Sargent - earned the NCMLE’s “2021 Teaching Team to Watch” award. Teacher assistant Haley Tatham earned the “2021 School-Based Personnel to Watch” award from the association, according to a news release from Henderson County Public Schools.
The awards are given annually. The team award is given to a group of school-based professionals who routinely collaborate to effectively support the overall growth and development of middle school students. The personnel award is given to a support professional that goes above and beyond to enhance middle level education for stu
Ashley Ruzich, Jessica Reid and Donna Sargent have been named the NCMLE’s “2021 Teaching Team to Watch,” the award given annually to a group of school-based professionals who routinely collaborate to effectively support the overall growth and development of middle school students.
Principal Katelyn Davis describes Team Fortitude as “three phenomenal women who each have their own skills and strengths that create an education that is challenging, passionate, fun, entertaining, standard driven, thought-provoking, and engaging.”
Apple Valley’s current Teacher of the Year, Reid blends intensity and humor into her social studies lessons, which Davis says are hands-on and rich with literature and media from American history. “You know you are nearing Ms. Reid’s class if you start to hear students debating about historical artifacts,” Davis says. A former high school teacher, mathematics teacher Sargent has the end goal in mind, providing her students with honest feed
The NCCAT Beginning Teacher of the Year process was developed to honor beginning teachers and to retain teachers who show promise as excellent teachers and education leaders in North Carolina public schools and public charter schools.
As we all know, challenges abound for any educator at the onset of their teaching career, said Jan King, the Henderson County school system s assistant superintendent for instructional services. Navigating the routine challenges of a first year teacher in the midst of a global pandemic makes Shanice Hill s recognition even more impressive and meaningful. We are so proud and grateful that Ms. Hill chose the education profession, and returned home to teach in the very district where she was once a student.