Jeanne Manley with Superintendent Dr. Bryan JohnsonThree Hamilton County teachers have been honored as the district’s 2017-2018 teachers of the year and will move on with other teachers from around the state to compete for Tennessee’s Teacher of the Year.
Samantha Eaton, a kindergarten teacher at Red Bank Elementary, was selected for elementary grades through fourth grade. Eaton has taught at Red Bank for the past five years, and she has nine years of teaching experience overall. She is now leading her kindergarten class with an emphasis on using science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics concepts, also known as STEAM.
“Leaders from across the nation have visited our little school to see the amazing things happening here because of the adventure into learning that began that day,” Eaton said in a statement.
Reading performance has also been a consistent high point for student progress in Eaton’s classroom. At the beginning of the year, 14 of her students were reading below grade level, four were reading on grade level and one was above grade level. As of December benchmarks, only two students are below grade level, six are reading on grade level and 12 are reading above grade level.
Samantha Eaton with Superintendent Dr. Bryan JohnsonJeanne Manley, an exceptional education teacher at Nolan Elementary, was honored for fifth through eighth grades. She has taught at Nolan for the past seven years and has 14 years overall experience in the classroom.
Manley goes to great lengths to motivate her students, according to a news release from the district.
“I am not afraid of looking silly,” Manley said in a statement. “Requiring a student to be their best, finding what motivates each to learn, building their trust in me to lead them, and celebrating successes are all important steps in our journey together.”
Nader Mohyuddin, a math teacher at Chattanooga Center for Creative Arts, was recognized at the high school level.
Mohyuddin has taught honors geometry, honors applied math and Advanced Placement calculus for the last four years at the school. Mohyuddin helped the school land one of the eight recently awarded Volkswagen eLabs, based off one of his lesson plans – ways to study a tesseract – in the application.
“The Tesseract is a 4-dimensional polytope unable to exist in our realm but can nevertheless be projected into it akin to how a 3-D object can cast a flat shadow,” Mohyuddin said. “Designing and building a projection of a Tesseract in the VW eLab would help bridge traditional geometry to higher level modes of synthesis and engineering design for my students.”
The district will honor the three winners at a luncheon in March, as well as recognize them at the school board’s regular meeting at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 15.
Contact staff writer Meghan Mangrum at mmangrum@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6592. Follow her on Twitter @memangrum.