Earlier this week, the West Virginia Department of Education announced five finalists for the 2024 Teacher of the Year.
Earlier this week, the West Virginia Department of Education announced five finalists for the 2024 Teacher of the Year.
The list includes elementary school teachers Sharon Cole from Ceredo-Kenova Elementary School in Wayne County, Kimberly Hunt from Roosevelt Elementary School in Mason County and Jaime Young from Woodsdale Elementary School in Ohio County, as well as high school English teacher Jennifer Kirk from Oak Hill High School in Fayette County and math teacher Michael Harshbarger from Cabell County Career Technology Center in Cabell County.
Each teacher was selected from among county Teacher of the Year winners.
The Teacher of the Year program recognizes teachers of excellence, connects them with a network of other equally inspirational and innovative educators and helps communicate the excellence of teaching to the public.
West Virginia’s 2024 Teacher of the Year, as well as School Service Personnel of the Year will be announced Sept. 12 during a ceremony at the Clay Center in Charleston.
The finalists were picked from among each school district's Teachers of the Year and represent elementary, middle and high school educators from all regions of the state, the department said in a news release.
Ten finalists have been chosen for West Virginia’s 2023 Teacher of the Year, the state Department of Education said.
The finalists were picked from among each school district’s Teachers of the Year and represent elementary, middle and high school educators from all regions of the state, the department said in a news release.
The finalists are Sarah Bailey of Buffalo Middle School in Wayne County, Lisa Bryant of Point Pleasant Primary School in Mason County, Charity Marstiller of Jefferson High School in Jefferson County, Amber Nichols of Eastwood Elementary School in Monongalia County, David Patrick of DuPont Middle School in Kanawha County, Angel Reed of Fairplain Elementary School in Jackson County, Shawna Safreed of Bridge Street Middle School in Ohio County, Cameron Shannon of Crescent Elementary School in Raleigh County, Tanya Stewart of Gilmer County Elementary School and Shari Tonkery of Lumberport Elementary School in Harrison County.
The state Teacher of the Year and School Service Personnel of the Year will be announced on Sept. 13 during a ceremony at the West Virginia Culture Center in Charleston.
Milton Middle School teacher Brian Casto was named the 2022 West Virginia Teacher of the Year.
Casto has just entered his 14th year teaching social studies, and it’s his fifth year teaching West Virginia Studies. Casto grew up in the state and received his teaching degree from Marshall University.
During the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, when all schools moved to remote and virtual learning, Casto made original, animated videos to help teach his class. The videos ended up catching the interest of more than just his students though.
To-date, his videos collectively on YouTube and Facebook have been viewed around 100,000 times.
Education reporter Liz McCormick sat down virtually with Casto to talk about his career and about being honored by the state in the midst of a pandemic.
This transcript from the original broadcasts has been lightly edited for clarity.
Extended: Middle School Teacher Who Captivated Thousands With Animated Videos Is New W.Va. Teacher Of The Year
LIZ MCCORMICK: Brian, thank you so much for joining us, and congratulations on being named the 2022 West Virginia Teacher of the Year. What does this achievement mean to you?
BRIAN CASTO: It’s definitely an honor. Very humbling. I just hope that I can represent West Virginia well, and my county, and social studies in general, especially since I teach West Virginia Studies. So hopefully I can shine a little light on how awesome our state is.
MCCORMICK: Brian, you’re a West Virginia native, and you grew up in Boone County. Talk with us a little bit about what inspired you to enter teaching.
CASTO: Whenever I was younger, I was in Boy Scouts. As you get older in Boy Scouts, you’re kind of tasked with the responsibility of trying to help the younger scouts. So I kind of got used to teaching how to tie a knot and how to do different things with camping, and just the things that go with Boy Scouts. [I] kind of took from that, and then [I had] some really great teachers in high school. I also had a really good history teacher, and I realized, ‘man, I really love history, and I really like talking to people about history. So maybe if I just put two and two together, maybe I’ll love telling people all about the world and things that have happened.’ And so I decided to go with that. And somehow things clicked, and I feel like this is where I’m supposed to be.
MCCORMICK: Brian, let’s talk about your animated videos. What started that journey?
CASTO: So it’s crazy how things kind of happened. I started working on the videos about a month before everything shut down, and I had only made maybe three videos. I made them for my class, because there’s really not a lot of media out there for West Virginia Studies, especially things that would kind of pique the interest of students. So I started making those, but I wasn’t really on a timeframe. I was kind of just making them as I taught things. Then the pandemic hit, and I started making them more because my students were virtual, and I wanted them to have something that would kind of get them excited and keep them engaged. I started making them and posting them on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. And all of a sudden other teachers started to send me messages saying that they were using the videos for their students that were virtual, and it kind of grew. So then I felt, not really pressure, but I felt kind of like an urgency to turn these videos out as quickly as I could. So I worked quite a bit from week-to-week trying to get these out there for other educators especially.
MCCORMICK: Talk with me about the wider response that you got from these videos.
CASTO: So originally, I made them for my students, and then my wife was like, ‘you know, you should post these on Facebook too, because maybe people will see them on Facebook, and go find them on YouTube.’ So I started posting them on Facebook with a link to [my] YouTube so the educators could use them more easily. [The response] definitely caught me off guard, especially when parents first started messaging and said that they were enjoying them. And then [I heard from] grandparents who were with a student watching these videos, and it just kept growing and growing and growing. I even had people from other places in the country say that they watched the videos, and they reminded them of when they were growing up in West Virginia, and they really enjoyed them, which really meant a lot. I really didn’t think that it would ever become as wide reaching as it has.
MCCORMICK: How many videos have you made so far? And are you still making videos this year?
CASTO: Yes, so I’m actually working on one right now for October. I made one on the creatures of West Virginia, like the monsters and folklore. Like the Braxton County Monster and Mothman and so on. This year, I’m [also] working on spooky places of West Virginia for the October video. I [also] just wrapped up a video this summer on a bunch of events that happened during the American Civil War. [In total], I’ve done a little over 40 videos since I started.
MCCORMICK: That’s wonderful, and congratulations again. Brian, shifting gears a little bit. You come into this role as teacher of the year in the midst of a global health pandemic. Since the start of this new school year, we have seen dozens of outbreaks and hundreds of individual cases of COVID-19 in our schools in West Virginia. What role do you see yourself playing in the overall path forward out of this pandemic for our schools?
CASTO: I have learned that in the last year-and-a-half since this all started that I don’t do long term planning other than thinking of my final outcome, but as far as the day-to-day things, I try to keep it to a very short span of time. I’ve tried to keep my focus very much like this week and not so much next week until that comes around, because I’ve learned that as my college professor, Dr. Isaac said, ‘the F word in education is flexibility.’ I have learned that you have to be more flexible than ever right now. So as far as myself, I mean, I think navigating [the pandemic], every teacher that I work with, we’re all just trying to get those really important skills down so that no matter what ends up happening with the school year, as far as continuity, just trying to make sure that there are certain skills that [our students] are going to need when they go to 9th grade, for the course that I teach. So I want to make sure that they have those skills. And I mean, as far as my role as the teacher of the year, I hope that I can bring encouragement to other educators and school staff and students in this difficult time, because I know that it is very difficult, especially with so many unknowns this year.
MCCORMICK: I understand that when you come into the role in January 2022, a lot of what you’ll be doing is traveling around the state, and you’ll be going to schools and talking to students and teachers. What is something you’re looking most forward to?
CASTO: There’s so many things I’m looking forward to. One is just seeing all the cool things that teachers are doing across the state, because I know they’re doing great things. So seeing that is going to be cool. But also, I mean, obviously I’m gonna steal some ideas. I mean, if I see some great things happening in Upshur County, then I’m gonna bring it back to Cabell County. I’m excited to see all the neat things teachers are doing and the students are doing. I love this state. I plan on, as much as possible, whenever I’m making these trips, to see some things that I can take back for my classroom as well.
The West Virginia Board of Education announced this week that Brian Casto of Cabell County is the 2022 West Virginia Teacher of the Year.
Casto grew up in the state and is a West Virginia Studies teacher at Milton Middle School. He’s been a history teacher for 13 years and received his social studies degree from Marshall University.
During the onset of the pandemic, when schools were forced into remote and virtual learning, Casto created original, animated videos to help teach his class.
He shared the resource with other teachers and homeschool parents through YouTube and Facebook. Collectively, his videos have been viewed more than 100,000 times.
“I’m just overjoyed and thankful and very humbled by the outpouring of people who reached out to me,” said Casto to board of education members. “From the time I was a small kid, and even as an adult, I’ve worked with amazing people in the school system. It was those people who encouraged me, whenever I was still trying to figure things out.”
Casto is on Milton Middle School’s leadership team. He coaches West Virginia Quiz Bowl and works with teens and church youth groups.
“I really hope that as the teacher of the year that I can try to be that positivity and encouragement to other people to show how important that is,” he said. “Because I would not even consider myself to be a good educator if it weren’t for all those people who were putting different pieces of my life together.”
Casto will receive several awards for his recognition including $10,000 from sponsors Horace Mann and Highmark. Half of that will go to Casto’s school, while the other half can be kept for personal use.
Casto has also received a classroom grant of $300 from the West Virginia Lottery, $500 from the West Virginia Chapter of the American Federation of Teachers and $1,000 from the West Virginia Education Association Foundation.
Casto will travel throughout the state in the coming year and speak with students.
The West Virginia Teacher of the Year Program was created in 1964 and aims to identify, recognize and promote representatives of excellent teaching in the elementary and secondary classrooms of the Mountain State.
Last week on our summer education radio series “Closing the COVID Gap,” we spoke with a school counselor about the social-emotional needs of our students post-pandemic.
This week, we speak with West Virginia’s 2021 Teacher of the Year Erin Anderson to learn about her experience navigating the pandemic and finding peace within the disruptions.
Anderson is a 5th grade teacher at Tennerton Elementary School in Upshur County. She is also a wife and a mother to a nine-year-old daughter.
Education reporter Liz McCormick spoke with Anderson via Skype.
Extended: W.Va. Teacher Of Year Tells New Teachers Not To Give Up After Tough Year
This transcript from the original broadcast has been lightly edited for clarity.
LIZ MCCORMICK: Thank you, Erin, so much for joining us. First, congratulations on being named the 2021 West Virginia Teacher of the Year — and what a year it has been. Erin, will you talk with us first about your experience this year as a teacher and as the state’s teacher of the year working through the coronavirus pandemic?
ERIN ANDERSON: Absolutely, and thank you so much for having me. You know, I really just had a peace about the school year from the get go. I knew that eyes were on me as a finalist heading into the school year. And I knew that God was here. He was before us, with us. And He was going to be here after us. And so, I knew that He already knew how it was going to play out. And so there was no need for me to panic. Now, that’s a new characteristic that I have, to be patient. No one was going to benefit from anybody panicking. So like I said, I just had a peace about this year, and I knew that it was going to play out the way it was supposed to play out for our kids and our families.
My message to teachers early on was, we’re not being asked to do more, just to do it in a different way. Every year we ask kids to sort of jump out of their comfort zone with learning, and so this was a way for us to kind of be on the other side and see what kids had to go through. Always one of my goals is listening to understand. And so as teacher of the year, I was trying to reach out and network with teachers, really to listen — to understand what their challenges were, what some of their triumphs were. How can we create opportunities from all of this?
MCCORMICK: Erin, our series this summer, “Closing the COVID Gap,” is all about exploring how we can tackle the issues that have come up in our school systems as a direct result of the coronavirus pandemic. As a teacher, and as West Virginia’s Teacher of the Year, what are some of the areas that you noticed that were the most challenging, and that now need the most attention in your opinion?
ANDERSON: I’m going to say first and foremost, we have to be careful how we approach this with kids. I’m not going to use the word ‘gap’ or ‘learning loss.’ I just believe they have a negative connotation when we’re talking to kids. We don’t really want to go there. Most of this is all still to be seen, because we’re going to be here; teachers are going to work hard to see how this all plays out.
What I did see from my kiddos this spring was a shortened attention span. You know, the stamina. We only had about 10 to 15 minutes of pure stamina by the time state testing came around. So, that was an issue in my room. I saw kids tired. I found one of the challenges was making sure I got all the content out to my kids when we were working remotely. Streamlining standards. Overlapping subjects as best I could. I think one of the challenges was just staying away from negativity. I’ve talked several times about ‘filling.’ You know, whatever you fill yourself with is what’s going to pour out whenever life knocks into you. And so, like I said, I was at peace. And I just needed to make sure that I was sharing that in a positive way, and that I was staying positive.
MCCORMICK: There are millions of dollars that are coming into our West Virginia schools through the American Rescue Plan. Specifically, a large portion of this money can be used to hire more teachers, to support current ones, to hire more school counselors, to even renovate old buildings to make them more safe in terms of COVID-19. As West Virginia’s Teacher of the Year, where do you envision some of these dollars really benefiting our 55 counties?
ANDERSON: Everybody in the room deserves attention, and so spending money on teachers is a great idea. One to 28 — that ratio — if we can get that ratio down. I’ve always said, ‘Gosh, if we could just have 12 kids in a class, imagine what we could do.’ So of course, teachers would be a great idea. If we just go back to the School Building Authority, if we go back to these lists of ‘what do these schools need?’ They’ve already done the legwork on what they need for kids.
MCCORMICK: There’s significant concern about teacher burnout, specifically this year as a result of the stressors of the pandemic. In a recent study that was released by Education Week, it found that more than 90 percent of teachers in the United States feel more stressed now than they did before the pandemic started. What might be some advice that you would give to a new teacher in West Virginia who started his or her career this year in the pandemic, and then also a teacher who’s been a longtime teacher? Both of whom may be feeling stressed and may be questioning whether or not to stay in the profession.
ANDERSON: To new teachers, I would give them the same advice I give a friend that gets a new haircut. Give it some time. It would be really hard to say yea or nay to the teaching profession this year. So my advice for new teachers is, this is such a rewarding career, and the relationships that you can build with kids and families is unlike anything else. We are the career that launches all other careers. And what I would say to seasoned teachers, teachers who’ve been teaching five years or better, this summer, do what you love. I happen to love running and, guilty-pleasure, watching The Bold and the Beautiful. I love sitting by the pool or hanging out with friends.
Soak up some professional development this summer; you’re going to want to hear what the experts are saying about, ‘do we remediate or do we accelerate? What are we supposed to do to fill in these gaps?’ You’re going to hear that all over the place. I want you to take some time to soak that in, but not too much, because we do need to unplug and take a break. We need some time for some of this to sink in and gel before we have to hit the ground running in August.
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The West Virginia Teacher of the Year program is under the West Virginia Department of Education and announced each year in the fall.
The state teacher of the year holds their title until January and is awarded $10,000 from sponsors Horace Mann and Highmark. Half of that goes to the teacher of the year’s school, while the other half can be kept for personal use. The West Virginia Lottery also awards a classroom grant of $300 to the winner.
The state teacher of the year serves on many state and nonprofit committees throughout the year, travels the state visiting different schools, and gives speeches at a variety of events, all while continuing to teach.
This episode of “Closing the COVID Gap” originally aired on West Virginia Morning on June 30, 2021.
A fifth-grade teacher has been named West Virginia’s Teacher of the Year for 2019.
The state Education Department said in a news release that Jada Reeves of Bradley Elementary in Mount Hope was presented the award on Thursday. It includes more than $15,000 and the use of a new car.
Reeves said she adores her students and doesn’t know of any other profession as inspiring as education. She will be considered for the National Teacher of the Year Award, which will be announced in April.
Gov. Jim Justice, state Superintendent of Schools Steven Paine, the state Board of Education and representatives from Toyota Motor Manufacturing of West Virginia, Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield, Horace Mann Insurance Solutions, WesBanco and the state lottery presented the award.
