Richland Two names the 2016–2017 district Teacher of the Year
May 9, 2016
Richland Two has named Kaitlin Manchester, seventh-grade and eighth-grade English Language Arts (ELA) teacher at Muller Road Middle School, as the district’s 2016–2017 Teacher of the Year. The announcement was made at the completion of the 2015–2016 Teacher of the Year Celebration Gala, held Thursday, May 5 and was streamed live via the Internet.
Manchester has spent the last two years teaching in Richland Two at Muller Road Middle School and also currently serves as the ELA department head. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in adolescent/young adult integrated language arts education from Cedarville University and a Master of Arts in English from Wake Forest University.
As District Teacher of the Year, Manchester will continue to balance creative freedom with structure, designing learning opportunities that invite students to think outside the box, and yet never neglecting the foundational basics that kindle rich growth: writing, inquiry, communication, organization and reading.
“Watching students’ curiosity awaken, seeing sparks of understanding and then wonder flicker in their eyes as they consider an idea for the first time—these are the moments that I remember as my greatest accomplishments,” says Manchester.
The five finalists for the award were selected from a pool of 30 teachers of the year, one from each school in the district. The district winner was chosen after each of the finalists was observed in their classrooms and interviewed by a selection committee composed of parents, students, community members and former teachers of the year.
