Wake County’s new Teacher of the Year balances job and being a single mom during COVID
After a year of waiting, Jennifer Pride was named the Wake County school system’s newest Teacher of the Year on Thursday.
Pride, an eighth-grade language arts teacher at Heritage Middle School in Wake Forest, had been among 20 semi-finalists for the award named in February 2020.
But plans to name the overall winner last May were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Instead of a traditional in-person celebration, the district’s 2020-21 and now also 2021-22 Teacher of the Year winner was announced Thursday afternoon in an online ceremony.
The ceremony came after a year where COVID-19 caused schooling to largely switch from in-person instruction to online classes. Pride said they’ve had to write the book of how to do school during a pandemic.
“To all of my fellow educators, we have certainly had a year figuring out how to make the transition from fully in-person to fully virtual and every option in between instruction,” Pride said in her acceptance speech.
“To my teacher-parents, the balancing act of meeting the needs of both our own children and our own students. And lastly, to my fellow single parents out here just doing it all. You are seen. You are heard, and most importantly you are appreciated.”
Pride has taught at Heritage for four years. Before that, she taught in Durham and Virginia.
Pride serves on Heritage Middle’s School Leadership Team and is co-chair of the school’s Equity Leadership Team. She is known for encouraging students to express themselves through the “Find Your Voice” book club she co-founded.
Focus on equity for students
Pride said each decision she makes as an educator is with her son William in mind. She tied her equity work back to how William had a “rocky” transition to the community as an adult “attempted to silence” her son’s voice.
This caused Pride, who is Black, “to have the talk a little bit sooner than I’d imagined.”
“In that moment I realized that I was in a position to uphold the character of my son,” Pride said. “But what about all the other children, those without an advocate?
“As painful as it was at the time, that talk became the catalyst for much of our equity work that has been accomplished here.”
Pride was surprised at her school during a virtual celebration. Superintendent Cathy Moore presented her with gifts and flowers at a very small event that the district said followed all COVID-19 health guidelines.
Pride was chosen out of a field of 10,700 teachers from 191 Wake County schools.
Each school named its Teacher of the Year winner. Selection committees reviewed the winners to narrow the list to 20 semi-finalists and then 10 finalists. The finalists were announced in December, months after they were to be announced in April.
Pride will represent Wake County in the North Carolina Teacher of the Year program.
Moore thanked both the finalists Thursday and all of Wake’s teachers for their efforts to educate the district’s 161,000 students this past year.
“You will always be fondly remembered among the many heroes of this challenging time, and your students and their families — all of us —will never forget how you courageously showed up, skillfully took stock of a dire situation and brilliantly led the way,” Moore said in a pre-recorded speech.
“Then again it should come as no surprise that you did all of us and so much more. After all, you’re teachers.”
This story was originally published February 11, 2021 at 4:17 PM.
