Greystone, Berry teachers honored in Montgomery among top educators in state
Greystone Elementary teacher Carol McLaughlin and Berry Middle School teacher Lincoln Clark were honored tonight in Montgomery at the 2018-19 Alabama Teacher of the Year ceremony.
McLaughlin, who teaches second grade at Greystone, was one of the top four finalists for Alabama Teacher of the Year, and Clark, who teaches science at Berry, was one of a total of 16 finalists for the award. Both represented District 3 of the Alabama Board of Education.
Gov. Kay Ivey tonight announced Zestlan Simmons, an English teacher at Booker T. Washington Magnet High School in Montgomery County, as the 2018-19 Alabama Teacher of the Year.
Meghan Allen, a special education teacher from Minor Community School in Jefferson County, was named the 2018-19 Elementary Teacher of the Year and Alternate Alabama Teacher of the Year.
McLaughlin and Blake Busbin, a social studies teacher from Auburn High School, were the other two finalists.
McLaughlin is in her 27th year as an educator and comes from a family of teachers, including both her parents, her grandmother, three aunts and an uncle.
She began her career as a reading teacher for Winfield City Schools in Marion County for four years and since then has taught first, second and third grade. She taught second grade at Greystone for 11 years.
All of her career has been in Alabama schools, except one year as a third-grade teacher in Pennsylvania.
McLaughlin began her career using mostly traditional teaching methods but has sought out ways to make her instruction more creative and engaging, according to a biography she wrote after being named her school’s Teacher of the Year this year.
She creates a classroom environment where the students become leaders and are encouraged to be active in their own learning. She also tries to inspire other teachers to re-evaluate their teaching methods and create more innovative learning environments in their classrooms.
She was Winfield City Schools’ Teacher of the Year in 2005 and Greystone’s Teacher of the Year both this year and in 2006. The Greystone Parent Teacher Association also named her its Teacher of the Year in 2008 and 2015. She was certified by the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards in 2008.
McLaughlin in 2015 started a worldwide Twitter educational chat called #2ndchat for teachers to share innovative ideas. Since 2014, she has organized monthly professional development opportunities for second-grade teachers throughout the Hoover school district, and she also has been a presenter at educational conferences and camps elsewhere. She was named a PBS Digital Innovator in 2016 and presented at the PBS Regional Summit that same year.
Lincoln Clark
Clark is in his 23rd year as a science teacher and his 18th year at Berry. He began his teaching career in 1995 at Meadowbrook Middle School and then Walker Middle School in Orlando.
Clark was hired at Berry Middle School in 2000. He has served as a mentor teacher in the UABTeach program and is a licensed trainer in argument-driven inquiry and a facilitator for the Hoover school district’s Engaged Learning Initiative, which incorporates technology into instruction.
Clark also served as the head coach on the Berry girls golf team from 2001 to 2016 and was named the Metro South Conference Girls Golf Coach of the Year in 2010, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. He also has served as defensive coordinator for the eighth-grade football team at Berry since 2002.
Clark tonight said he loves going to work every day, and he knows he is in the role he is in only because of gifts God has given him, including patience and a sense of humor.
Everyone in education has their own niche, and while he couldn’t do many of the jobs of the other finalists, he has found his niche teaching middle school life science, he said.
Clark almost left the teaching profession early in his career but was encouraged by former Berry Principal Kathy Wheaton to stick with it. “It’s a big, important job to keep encouraging more and more educators to stay in, to keep that passion,” he said.
Hoover High's Paul McEwan
McLaughlin and Clark were not the only Hoover educators in the spotlight in Montgomery tonight.
Paul McEwan, a biology teacher at Hoover High, spoke about the past year serving as the 2017-18 Alabama Secondary Teacher of the Year.
McEwan said as he soon as he won Secondary Teacher of the Year and Alternate Alabama Teacher of the Year last year, several people told him his life was about to change.
He wasn’t quite sure what they meant. His jokes didn’t get any better, he didn’t get out of work at home, and he didn’t get discounts on food at restaurants, he joked.
But he has enjoyed the opportunity to keep encouraging other teachers and motivating them to collaborate with one another in order to grow, he said. He started an “observe me” movement at his school, whereby teachers are encouraged to invite other teachers into their classrooms to give feedback on their instruction techniques. More than 30 teachers are involved, he said.
“Learning and teaching is hard work,” McEwan said. The most important thing teachers can do is to continue inspiring their students and breathing life into them, he said.
Tammy Dunn, the 2003 Alabama Teacher of the Year and a former chief academic officer for Hoover City Schools, once shared with him and a group of teachers that if they ever get to the point where they think they have arrived, they need to retire.
He is approaching his 35th year in education, and that comment still pushes him forward every day, he said.
“Every day, I reflect on what I’m doing, from student to student, from table to table, from class to class, on ‘What did I do? What can I get better at every second?’” he said.
Governor: Alabama owes debt to teachers
The governor thanked the teachers for their service and said, as a former teacher herself, she understands how much effort it takes to properly prepare to be an effective teacher.
“I’m thankful every day for teachers like you who go to work every day to instruct and inspire our students to learn and to achieve,” Ivey said. “There’s no greater impact on a person’s life than that of education.”
Ivey said she worked with the Legislature to achieve an education budget this year that is the highest one in a decade, and it included a raise for teachers. She said her “Strong start, strong finish” initiative includes goals for:
- All third-graders in Alabama to be reading at or above grade level by 2022
- More than 500,000 Alabamians age 24 to 64 to earn a post-secondary degree on credential by 2025
- Every high school to have at least one computer science course by 2022
“We must prepare our people. Whether they graduate from high school, a community college or a four-year university, they must be prepared to work and and a good wage,” Ivey said. “It’s important that our 21st century children learn 21st century techniques.”
The governor said she appreciates the Teacher of the Year finalists and other teachers like them who are willing to dig in the trenches and put in the work necessary to encourage children to achieve success.
“Tonight is a reminder that despite our challenges, Alabama has good teachers,” she said. “Teachers, your task is a great and noble one, and the people of this state are in your debt.”