In recognition of Teacher Appreciation Week, Cox Communications and Cox Business awarded four FCPS Cox Education Heroes with $1,000 for a classroom makeover. 

The 2022 Cox Education Hero awards honor teachers because, according to Cox, teaching is a work of heart. 

Kathleen Mehari, Wolftrap Elementary School

Collaboration Equates to Student Success

After successfully teaching second graders at Wolftrap Elementary, Kathleen Mehari took on the challenge of dropping down a grade level. At first blush, moving down a grade may seem easier. Mehari knew otherwise. She knew she would need to learn too. Her mantra is, “One step at a time. Be open. Flexible.” 

To begin, Mehari intentionally collaborated with the school’s reading specialist. Teaching first graders to read and write is markedly different. She points out, “First graders are learning to read. My second graders were reading to learn.” 

With the learning challenges brought about by COVID’s disruptions, Mehari found that for some students, she needed to go back further. She needed knowledge of how to teach a student to read including the basics of reading and writing letters. “We went back to kindergarten,” she added. 

For these reasons, a school’s reading specialist is the ideal educator to step in to help. The specialist’s role is helping classroom teachers understand student development, where to find resources, and appropriate strategies – such as when to use phonics and how best to deploy small group instruction. These strategies have helped her succeed, which means that her students are succeeding too. “We’ve seen positive growth in each of the student’s reading and writing,” she said.

Collaboration equates to student success. In Mehari’s case, teamwork helped her grow as an educator and, according to one of her parent nominators, allowed her to do what she has always done well – make real connections with students: “I adore her as my son’s teacher, feel heard by her, feel she loves my child and, and as an educator myself, am impressed by all she does.”

Charlotte Frazier, Island Creek Elementary School

Celebrating Many Small Moments of Success 

When asked about the challenges of her job, Charlotte Frazier, an enhanced autism teacher, didn’t hesitate. She replied, “It’s hard to be ‘on’ all the time.” It was not lost on us that she said this during a phone call on her day off.

Frazier’s Cox Education Hero nomination packet is laced with mentions of her extracurriculars: “Charlotte works summer school,” “says ‘What else can I do,’” “spends countless hours reading and replying to [families] emails and chatting on the phone.” 

She does all of this because she wants to be there for each moment of success, large or small – she craves it. Because her seven students have special needs, she delights in accomplishments such as getting a student to wash their own hands, ask for a napkin, or say that they need a break. 

The rewards of helping students with autism are incremental and real. Frazier sees the progress in bits and then chunks, because of her connections with her students. “I had a student who regularly climbed and jumped off of furniture. By building a rapport, she says, “We changed that behavior and now the student is spending parts of her school day in general education classrooms. That student worked hard.  Now they are a leader who reminds others to walk – not run – in the halls.”

Frazier said “we” changed that behavior, purposefully extending the kudos to her colleagues. “My instructional assistants,” she says, “are critical to the success of their students, and I don’t view them as assistants. My classroom would not function without them.” 

The focus of Frazier’s work is on pushing her students to be their own self advocates. She is tireless in that pursuit and aware that it is an incremental process – willing, with her team, to celebrate many small moments of success.

Kevin Deans, Katherine Johnson Middle School

When Teachers Learn, Students Benefit 

Before talking about Kevin Deans, we would like to tell you about one of his struggling 8th grade English Learner or EL students.

The student recently came to Deans’ class in tears. They had failed their math Standards of Learning (SOL) test. “When the student cried,” he said, “I knew that I had failed them.” 

Thankfully, Deans had an inkling of what to do next, and some “trust in the bank” with the student and their parents.

At the start of the year, Deans works to “build up” his students. As he puts it, “I like to make deposits early in the year by communicating successes, and I share those successes with their parents.” Without deposits, he explains, you cannot expect for discussion to be open or fully appreciated when challenges arise. Without banking deposits, he alludes, you are not a trusted partner.

Deans had built a rapport between the parents and the student by working with their school’s family liaison and using Google translate. With an SOL retake on the horizon, Deans began making withdrawals. He convinced the student to stay after school for tutoring and got their family to agree. He also looked at some data to understand why the student did not do well, and he found something. “It wasn’t the math that they didn’t understand, it was the reading,” he explained. “Whenever a math problem has two or more sentences, this particular student struggles. So, we focused our efforts on reading.”

Following the test retakes, Deans caught up with the student in the hallway. They broke down in tears again, but this time it was because Deans told them they had passed. As Deans put it, “That student traded 50 pounds of stress for a ton of confidence.”

“I learned so much from that experience,” Deans proudly exclaimed, “Relationships, empathy, giving, data and patience.” 

Anne Nolan, Fairfax High School

A Public Education Community Servant

“Every time I ask her for a space to pray in the library, because I am Muslim, she always has a space for me.” Those are the grateful words of Anne Nolan’s nominator, a student at Fairfax High School. “She makes me feel welcome, comfortable in my school.”

Nolan has been an educator for 22 years; 18 of those have been with FCPS. She  remains committed because of a passion to serve that was passed down by parents. When asked about heroism, Nolan does not deflect, she reflects. “I think of my mom and dad as heroes – public servants who did their work faithfully, without fanfare, and contributed to the common good of our nation, and building up the next generations to do the same.”

She adds, “A student thought of nominating me for this award, and it makes me happy to know that our efforts had the desired effect – the student feels welcomed and valued.” This exemplifies her points about contributing to our country and nurturing our children to do the same. 

Nolan believes that libraries are important “third spaces,” shared communally with students, employees, and the community. Making that space safe and inviting for everyone was her goal. Working collaboratively with employees at every level at the school, it has become a collective goal.

Recognizing that each day people are faced with unique – sometimes personal challenges, Nolan differentiates her engagement and instruction. “None of us are in a position every single day to be receptive and open to learning and creating,” says Nolan. “We need to meet students where they are, provide them with a safe and stable place to learn, show them that we have confidence in them, that we believe in them, that we trust that they want to learn and grow.”

From supporting one student’s personal needs, to collaborating across the spectrum of stakeholders, Nolan puts a high priority on the importance of public education and views the library as an integral part of public education’s role as a nation builder.