Park County School District 1 took a moment to individually recognize 12 district employees when staff returned to the district Aug. 14. 

“This is a call that these people have to come and serve our kids and to work with kids and the love, care, compassion and kindness that comes into our buildings every day to teach the next generation of the children of Powell — I marvel at it all the time,” Superintendent Jay Curtis said, adding, “I feel so privileged to be a leader in this district with the kind of people that we are so fortunate to have that choose to come work for us, it’s special.”

Staff members from each school were recognized as part of the district’s Master Teacher awards; Support Staff of the Year for each school and Master Bus Driver awards were also presented. The honors, which are three years old, two years old and in the case of Master Bus Driver, brand new, were started to bring more recognition to district staff.

It’s difficult to choose one staff member from each building, Curtis said, adding the district is blessed.

Additionally, for the second year, they also recognized the Park County School District 1 Support Staff of the Year for the district. This year’s honored staff member is Food Services Director Savannah Layland. Joyce Ruward, executive administrative assistant, was the inaugural recipient.

“She is so creative, and she has taken our food service program ... It has come light years in just a couple of years,” Curtis said of Layland.

The push to recognize more staff began roughly four years ago when PCSD1 received roughly 10 nominations for Park County School District 1 Teacher of the Year.

Curtis said there was already a goal in place to celebrate more members of the staff so the decision was made to begin recognizing one teacher from each school in the district as a Master Teacher.

Now, there’s a plaque with a growing list of names as each awardee gets their name added, “and those will be there for everyone to see for not just this year, but for many, many, many, many years to come. So it’s kind of also a historical record of the great teachers in each building as well,” Curtis said.

Students who earn recognition are more likely to want to work hard to be recognized, he said — it works the same way for staff, “but one of the things that I personally as superintendent want our staff to know is how valuable they are to the success of our students, and so I want our people to feel special and valued and like they’re seen and their hard work is recognized.”

Nominees for Master Teacher are pulled in part from the district teacher of the year nominations — if a building doesn’t have nominations they turn to the committee and ask principals for names in their buildings. When it comes to choosing staff, there are objective criteria, including that teachers must be in the district for five years. After that, selection becomes slightly more subjective. It can be hard to compare a music teacher to a high school English teacher, Curtis offered as comparison. The district looks to see what the teacher’s impact is in the building, are they “teacher leaders,” he said, “Are they working and impacting kids beyond their eight to four job and you know, and in what ways are they impacting kids?”

Master Teachers

Westside Elementary School: Kelsey Tobin (in her former role as a fifth grade teacher)

Southside Elementary School: Kati Sears, music teacher

Parkside/Clark Elementary Schools: Kelli Schiller, reading recovery teacher

Powell Middle School: DeLina Horton, composition, literature

Powell High School: Troy Hildebrand, math

Support Staff of the Year

Westside Elementary School: Sarah Wormald, special education para

Southside Elementary School: Heidi Dicks, computer lab manager, specialty classes

Parkside/Clark Elementary Schools: Lisa Price, kindergarten para 

Powell Middle School: Jodie Sanders, administrative assistant

Powell High School: Lisa Schwahn, para professional

Master Bus Driver: Gary Patterson

District Support Staff of the Year: Savannah Layland

(Editor’s note: Kelli Schiller is the mother of Braden Schiller)