In the past few weeks, four Mooresville High School teachers have been awarded for their outstanding performance in their schools and community, including math teacher Kyla Carlsberg, special education department chair Jenny Gaston, Spanish teacher Alicia Richhart, and choir director Jason Damron.
Carlsberg was awarded the VFW Post 1111 Teacher of the Year award, along with Paul Hadley Middle School teacher Crystal Davis. Carlsberg was nominated for this award after being the H.O.P.E
(Helping Our Pupils Excel) Award recipient last year. Along with this title, Carlsberg was named VFW District 7 teacher of the year. Twenty two counties and twenty two VFW posts vote on their nominees and Carlsberg ended up being victorious.
Carlsberg loves Mooresville and hopes she continues to grow in her teaching as she is here.
“I felt surprised and grateful when I found out that I had been selected. I love our school and our students and I’m grateful to be here,” Carlsberg said.
Damron was named the Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA) Hoosier Educator of the Year Award. He was nominated a while ago, and had forgotten that he had the possibility of winning the award. He was in shock when the President of the ISTA, Jennifer Smith-Margraf, named him at a faculty meeting.
“This award feels like a big honor, but there are also so many excellent teachers. I wasn’t sure I even deserved it because of the number of good teachers just in this corporation, let alone the entire state. Many people have been so kind and encouraging that it has helped me feel better about it. I am excited to have the opportunity next February to be the Indiana candidate for the National Educators Association National Teacher of the Year,” Damron said.
Being the choir director at MHS, Damron interacts with students all the time and tries to make their day better. Freshman Mary Sliva couldn’t agree more that Damron should have taken home the ISTA award.
“He’s taught us so much in choir. With singing techniques and also personally getting to know us. I feel like I can just easily talk to him, he’s really easy to talk to. And his class just seriously makes my day like ten times better. He’s really funny and just makes our day better. I have him first period and it just makes my day so much better just being in choir,” Sliva said.
As Damron said, he has the opportunity to attend a national teachers conference in February, hosted in Washington D.C. This means he will be the voice for Indiana educators along with the other states represented.
Gaston was given the H.O.P.E award, which is chosen by the teachers at Mooresville High School. A form is sent out where teachers can nominate other
teachers based on what they have seen during the school year. After the initial vote is done, the office tallies up the names to the top three, and then sends that out for a vote.
This year, Gaston was named the H.O.P.E award recipient and was told out of the blue at a teachers meeting.
“I was surprised and very humbled to be chosen by my colleagues to represent our school with this honor. There are many teachers in this building that could receive this honor which makes me feel that they recognize the efforts I put into my job each day. This was a complete surprise. I had no idea,” Gaston said.
Richhart was named the Alumna of the Year. Chosen by the Alumni Association, this honor is presented annually at the alumni banquet to a member of the community who is going above and beyond.
Along with being a Spanish teacher here at the high school, Richhart participated in the Honor Flight and is the Key Club Advisor among other things.
At the banquet, as they listed off her roles, the room could slowly tell who would be getting the award.
Richhart was there under the pretense that she would be there for MHS’ Work Based Learning program. During the announcement portion of the dinner, her family arrived. Her family had been keeping the secrets for weeks, waiting until they could share this special moment with her.
“I appreciate having a platform to talk about Key Club and the other organizations close to my heart, like Honor Flight…but I don’t do any of these service projects to receive praise. I prefer to be the organizer behind the scenes and let the work speak for itself,” Richhart said.
Junior Morgan Gainey is apart of the Key Club Executive Board and sees the work Richhart puts in everyday for students. The commitment for the school is very clear when someone looks at how Richhart works.
“I’m very proud of her. She works really hard for it. She does everything for a lot of students, so she definitely deserves it,” Gainey said.
With four teachers being honored so close together, Mooresville has seen an influx of good news. Principal Wes Upton couldn’t be happier with this. He sees each of the four honored as well deserving of it.
“We are thrilled with the teachers that have been honored. Of course we have so many teachers that deserve recognition but these four educators are amazing. If there was one word I would use to describe them all it would be dedicated. Each of them are dedicated to doing what is best for kids and doing everything possible to make sure they are successful not only in their content area but in life overall,” Upton said.
Upton also would like to remind students that they too can give teachers shout-outs. Whether that’s in person or over an email, reaching out and telling teachers they’re appreciated goes a long way. Outside of A106 is a notice board with pictures of teachers and a QR code on it. If a student scans that QR code, it is a teacher shout-out. This is a great way to show teachers appreciation at MHS.
