ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 24, 1996 TAG: 9602260079
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
What do you get when you combine some creative teachers, an energetic staff and a supportive principal? Six teachers in one school who each have won a local, state or national awards in the past few months.
That's what has happened at Christiansburg Elementary School and Thursday, the school held a breakfast to honor them.
"I doubt we'll have another year with so many teacher awards," said fourth-grade teacher Wilma Cassol, who headed the breakfast celebration.
"We all know what a fine group of hard workers we have but it's awfully nice to have some recognition."
The awards included:
Cheryl Butman, the Southwest Virginia Art Teacher of the Year. Nominated a year ago by a Roanoke County teacher, Butman had to create a notebook documenting her goals and experiences in the classroom.
Butman said she tries to incorporate class assignments into her art projects. Recently, her students chose an artist, researched his or her methods, then painted a miniature replica of one of the artist's pieces using the same medium.
Erma Jones, the 1995-96 New River Valley Reading Teacher of the Year. This spring, Jones will present the work her students created at a state reading fair.
Jones and Butman had their students create snowy birch tree paintings after mastering Robert Frost's challenging poem, "Birches."
Cheryl St. John, whose fifth-grade chorus was invited to perform at the Virginia Music Teacher's Conference.
Other teachers praised St. John for taking a group of children with various ability levels, boosting their self-esteem and creating some wonderful music.
Christopher Walter and Kym Helms, who both received Excellence in Education awards from Virginia Tech.
Third-grade teacher Helms received the award for her ocean adventure project. Pupils followed the adventures of actual ship skippers through the Internet while they researched ocean life and practiced salt water experiments.
Walter, a fourth-grade teacher, earned the award for his dog-sled project where students actually designed and built their own dog sled and trained three dogs to pull the sled.
Walter said his class took so much pride in their project, they would not let him teach it again this year. Now he and this year's class are building their own steel drum instead.
Catherine Ney, the winner of the 1995 Presidential Award for Excellence in Elementary Science Teaching. This spring, she will spend a week in Washington, D.C., and meet President Clinton. Christiansburg Elementary will receive a $7,500 award as well.
Ney created a curriculum that uses literature as a base and integrates math, science and technology to create hands-on learning.
The teachers said they could not have achieved their awards without the support and encouragement of their co-workers and, in particular, their principal, Janice Roback.
"She's helped me an awful lot," said Walter. "If she left this school for another, I'd try to go with her."
Unfortunately, Roback could not share in the celebration; she has spent much of this year with her ailing husband at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center in Baltimore.
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