Ode To The Unsung Heroes

The morning after he announced the winners of the Perot Teaching Awards at a May school board meeting, Willis Tate, chairman of the Community Network for Public Education and president emeritus of SMU, woke up early, eager to read the paper. He was looking forward to seeing the write-up on the eight outstanding D1SD teachers.

Tate should have slept late. The awards didn’t make the press. Good news – especially about the DISD-just doesn’t fly. But some of the tales Tate told should at least have been covered as human interest stories. There’s Deborah Stafford, an art teacher at H. Grady Spruce High, who decided to try some aggressive caring last year on a student who rarely showed up for classes and who frequently had the bleary, too-familiar look of a teen messed up on alcohol and drugs. The girl, Stafford thought, spent too much time with the wrong crowd. So Stafford began to make a special effort to befriend the girl, often driving her home in hopes of meeting her parents.

But the “student” had no intention of introducing Stafford to her parents; she only wanted to do her job – as a Dallas Police undercover officer. The young-looking woman was one of two narcotics agents who had been enrolled in the high school that semester. The teacher never suspected the truth until the day before the Christmas holidays when a drug bust took place at the school. Police officials were so impressed with Stafford’s efforts that she was later invited to a police department awards program.

Seven other DISD teachers also received Perot Teaching Awards and $ 1,000 checks provided from a fund established in 1971 by the Perot Foundation. The winners were selected by a committee of educators and laymen who spent classroom time with each nominee, observing the teacher’s performance and relationship with students.

Some of the comments the committee made about the winners were read by Willis Tate at the awards banquet. Claudine Morgan, a biology teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School, “embodies the qualities of a true teacher.” Donna Schlichting, a mathematics teacher at Boude Storey Middle School, was described by her principal as “a dedicated, caring teacher… that every principal dreams of.” Duane Trammel, a Talented and Gifted (TAG) program teacher at T.G. Terry Elementary, “challenges his students to take risks, such as submitting manuscripts to magazines and contacting businesses for interviews.” A committee member said students had to be “chased out of Trammell’s classroom” in order for them to get to their next class on time.

Melissa Alloway, a deaf-education teacher at Stonewall Jackson Elementary, teaches with her fingers in a “relaxed and productive” way, said the committee report. Diana Belvin, a kindergarten Eng-lish-as-a-second-language teacher at O.M. Roberts Elementary, pays for students’ Christmas presents, often out of her own pocket. Of Leticia Garza, a fifth-and sixth-grade language-arts teacher at Lida Hooe Elementary, a committee member had this to say: “How I wish every child had an opportunity to experience a teacher like her.” Annie Ruth Jackson, who teaches programmatics remedial reading and mathematics at Bayles Elementary, strives to make learning a “happy experience” and to abolish the word “can’t” from her students’ vocabulary.

One of the Perot teachers, Claudine Morgan, happened to have planned a field trip for her class the day the committee member visited. She didn’t change her plans and she admits she “almost wore him out.” Morgan says the awards “made us feel like maybe we’re doing something right. People think our job is so easy- they don’t know how many hours we spend planning and grading papers.”

The Perot Teaching Awards made eight teachers feel special. But Tate says that at least 80 awards should have been presented. “The more recognition teachers receive, the sooner teachers will be able to reinstate public faith in the schools.” That’s important, Tate says, “because teaching is the best profession in the world.”