School District Celebrates 'Outstanding' Canton Educators

The Cherokee County School District recently celebrated outstanding educators with an elegant dinner, tributes and gifts at the CCSD 2015 Teacher of the Year Recognition Banquet, thanks to the support of community partners.

The annual dinner for the district’s Teacher of the Year and school-level Teachers of the Year was co-hosted by Credit Union of Georgia and Northside Hospital-Cherokee Dec. 11 at the Northside Hospital-Cherokee Conference Center in Canton.

Cherokee County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Frank Petruzielo congratulated CCSD 2015 Teacher of the Year Joy Silk of Ball Ground Elementary School STEM Academy, as well as all school-level winners during the event, which also was attended by all district principals, the superintendent’s cabinet and members of the Cherokee County School Board.

“Ms. Silk has a love for teaching children, not just about science, technology, engineering and math, but also the importance of problem-solving and that ‘failure is OK,’” Petruzielo said in his introduction of Ms. Silk, who teaches STEM and AIM gifted classes, who then gave her own speech to the audience. “Her strong belief in the potential of every child to succeed has been bolstered by spending her career teaching in Title I schools and watching them flourish.”

Petruzielo then introduced Shelby McDonald, one of Silk’s students, who spoke about how the teacher has encouraged her to succeed not only in school, but also in life.

Silk in her speech spoke about her mission as an educator and her belief that failure and the opportunity to try again teaches students important life lessons. She also praised all of the school-level Teachers of the Year in attendance for their dedication to the profession and the children they teach.

Petruzielo presented gifts to all of the winners, including: a $100 Visa Gift Card (funded by donations from Credit Union of Georgia and Northside Hospital-Cherokee); gifts from APEX, Dell, Hewlett Packard, Kroger and Pearson; a portrait by Lifetouch Portrait Studio and an engraved plaque.

Silk additionally received: a Dell XPS Tablet from Dell, a $500 gift card and $100 gift basket from Kroger, a $500 Visa gift card from the Cherokee County Educational Foundation, an iPad Mini Gold 16 GB from Alacatel-Lucent, an iPad Mini 16 GB from Southern Computer Warehouse, a Lenono Yoga Tablet from Morse Communications, a Kindle Fire from CommScope, a $100 American Express gift card from Mission Critical, a $100 Amazon.com gift card from Follett, a Harman Kardon Onyx Studios Wireless Bluetooth Speaker from Aruba Networks and a $25 Amazon.com gift card from Think Through Math.

“We appreciate your dedication to educate our children and grandchildren and to make CCSD one of the best school systems in the State and Nation,” Petruzielo told the room full of honorees. “I thank you for all that you do every day in your classrooms and in our community.”

To further recognize its teachers of the year, the school district last year established a Teacher of the Year page on its website, which contains stories about and photos of each of the school-level teachers of the year.

Photo 1: Superintendent of Schools Dr. Frank Petruzielo congratulates Cherokee County School District 2015 Teacher of the Year Joy Silk, a STEM/AIM Gifted teacher at Ball Ground Elementary School STEM Academy. (Photo courtesy of Lifetouch Portrait Studio)

Photo 2: The Cherokee County School Board and Cherokee County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Frank Petruzielo, front row center, pose for a commemorative photo with Cherokee County School District 2015 Teacher of the Year Joy Silk, seated to the left of the Superintendent, and school-level winners at the annual Teacher of the Year Recognition Banquet. (Photo courtesy of Lifetouch Portrait Studio)