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Marion Intermediate School teacher Teresa Hash

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Educator earns regional Teacher of the Year honor

By DAN KEGLEY/Staff

Marion Intermediate School teacher Teresa Hash got good news Wednesday in the middle of a math lesson she was teaching. State and local education officials and the mayor of Marion went to her room to announce she was one of eight teachers in the running for Virginia’s top teacher honor.
They told Hash, currently Smyth County’s Teacher of the Year, she was chosen Virginia’s Region 7 Teacher of the Year as similar announcements were made to selected teachers across the Virginia Department of Education’s eight regions.
“It was a big surprise,” Hash said. “I was speechless. I was in the middle of a math lesson with the lights off and the overhead projector on, and the door opened.”
She said she had no prior idea she had been selected, but kept checking her mailbox for a letter she was told would be sent to the honorees.
In the visit to Hash’s classroom, Smyth County Schools’ Director of Curriculum and Instruction Kyle Rhodes, School Superintendent Dr. Mike Robinson, school board members Susan Sneed and Sam Hambrick and Marion Mayor David Helms joined Dr. Doug Cox, VDE assistant superintendent for special education and student services, and Dr. Tom Brewster, a member of the Virginia Board of Education.
“The educators recognized today represent not only their regions, but the more than 100,000 Virginia teachers who inspire and encourage students — while challenging them — to achieve at increasingly higher levels,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Billy K. Cannaday Jr. said Wednesday.
Hash’s regional colleagues are: Nicole C. Winter, a social studies instructor at Cosby High in Chesterfield County (Region 1); Sarah O.V. Lichtel, a third-grade teacher at Stonehouse Elementary in Williamsburg (Region 2); Kyle J. Toth, an English instructor at Massaponax High in Spotsylvania County (Region 3);  Patricia R. Herr, a physical science teacher at Smart’s Mill Middle in Loudoun County (Region 4);  Therese R. Warner, a prekindergarten instructor at McGaheysville Elementary in Rockingham County (Region 5); Stephanie A. Doyle, a U.S. History I teacher at Breckinridge Middle in Roanoke (Region 6); Joy E. Utzinger, a visual arts teacher at Prince Edward County Elementary (Region 8).
The eight teachers were selected from among candidates nominated by their school divisions, a VDE release said. The candidates prepared and submitted portfolios highlighting their professional accomplishments, educational philosophies and community activities. A panel of representatives of professional and educational associations, the business community and 2008 Virginia Teacher of the Year Thomas R. Smigiel Jr. of Norfolk reviewed the portfolios.
“It feels great,” Hash said of her selection.
The honor comes early in her 12th year of teaching, her second career. Before teaching, she was a jewelry buyer. Even then, she was teaching and training—work that revealed to her a need.
“It was amazing the adults I worked with, the skills they lacked,” she said.
Now in formal public education, her goal is “to teach you something you can take with you the rest of your life to be happy, productive adults. I want them to remember I cared, that I wanted to make a difference.”
Hash works one week each summer with the state department of education on its SOL committee, “gathering and sharing ideas.” Working in education outside the county is an opportunity to see what other teachers are doing and adopt the best of their ideas.
That perspective also shows her, she said, the quality of her own school division.
“It all goes back to roots. It takes a community to educate a child,” she said.
The community and now the region are honoring the best of the educators. “I don’t consider myself to be the best, just one of many,” Hash said when she took the county honor.
“We’re proud of her accomplishment,” Robinson said.