Teacher of The Week is Changing Lives in Her First Year Teaching

The first year at any career can be intimidating. Especially if your first year is during a pandemic. But when you're doing what you were born to do, it just comes easy.

That's the case for our brand new Teacher of The Week. It's her first year teaching, but like her nomination letter says, you'd never know it.

Congratulations to Kat Vargas from Nashold Early Childhood Center! Kat was nominated anonymously by a coworker and her nomination letter reads -

Ms. Kat is a first-year early childhood teacher. She is young and a new teacher but, you would never know that being in her class. She may not know it but, she is changing the lives of her students forever. She is a teacher in a full-day classroom. She has a very diverse group of children, and she loves all of them in a very individualized way. Her students learn through the questions Ms. Kat poses to them rather than by her giving them the answer. One of the things that impresses me the most about Ms. Kat is how she has helped her students' social-emotionally growth. These 5 year-olds can identify, label, and express their feelings in a way that most adults cannot. That is an amazing accomplishment and the greatest show of success for preschool teachers, let alone a first-year teacher. Any early childhood educator will tell you how huge that is for our kids' success in kindergarten and beyond. Academically, Ms. Kat challenges her students every day but, she also walks right along with them to support their every step. Her students are always engaged and learning.

How incredible is that? You can just tell Kat was born to be a teacher. We got to celebrate Kat by dropping off a beautiful floral arrangement from Broadway Florist and a delicious bundt cake from Nothing Bundt Cakes!

Here's some pictures of that delivery making its way to Kat's classroom.