The Daily Citizen
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The following teachers were recognized last Friday by Dalton Public Schools as the teachers of the year for their schools: Blue Ridge: Tara Marie; Brookwood: Karla Smedley; City Park: Josef Damasch; Park Creek: Pennie Lawson; Roan: Ashley Edwards; Westwood: Michelle Huch; Dalton Middle: Lynne Parker; Morris Innovative High: Julia Higgins.; Dalton High: Renae Peppers.
In this time of great educational uncertainty in Georgia it is easy to forget where the focus of our attention should be — the classroom.
Yes, it is right to worry about how cuts to state funding will impact the education we are able to provide our children, but no matter what happens in the state house education is still about teachers helping students learn and grow.
Which is why it was refreshing last Friday for Dalton school officials to step aside, for a moment, from the day-to-day business of running a school district and celebrate the accomplishments of several of the district’s classroom leaders.
The school system named Dalton Middle School teacher Lynne Parker as its teacher of the year, while Gail Godwin of Brookwood School was honored as the Dalton Education Foundation’s Tom Jones Educator of the Year. The district also recognized eight other educators as the teachers of the year for their respective schools.
Parker has been a teacher for 40 years and has spent eight of those years in Dalton. She makes a difference, said school board Chairman Steve Williams, through “quality teaching” and being heavily involved in extracurricular activities and sports events so she can be involved in her students’ lives outside the classroom.
Upon receiving the award, Parker said, “Being a teacher is the best job in the world. Its rewards are so bountiful.
“I love Dalton Middle School — my principal, assistant principals, my peers and everyone affiliated with DMS. Never has there been a more caring group of people. When I was diagnosed with stage four, nonsmokers cancer last June, my peers cleaned my house numerous times, brought me tons of food when I was taking chemo, let me park near the school because I could barely walk, and 20 of my fellow workers decorated my entire house at Christmas.
“To this day, the cards, e-mails and caring attitudes still continue. There has never been such a caring school. Dalton Middle School should be school of the year. They would easily win that award because at DMS we are family.”
The Tom Jones award winner, Godwin, is no stranger to teaching awards. She received teacher of the year awards in 1982, 1986 and 1993 while working at other school districts, and in 2009 she was named Brookwood’s teacher of the year.
Brookwood Principal Will Esters said there’s something special about going into Godwin’s classroom.
“It’s just a feeling,” he said. “... Gail is one of those teachers that every person hopes that their child will experience. She genuinely cares about the kids ... She is quiet, but there’s such genuine, heartfelt wisdom in the things that she says that you want to listen.”
We cheer for our coaches and the athletes they have the chance to lead on game days, but we rarely have the chance to tell our teachers job well done because what they do isn’t done in public. It is done in the classroom where every day our children are getting the best they have to offer.
Thank you, Lynne Parker, Gail Godwin and the other winners of the teacher of the year awards for their schools. It is because of people like you that we know our children are in good hands when they step into the classroom.
