Despite retiring in May, Kim Gregory, of Bruce, has never stopped working to better herself as a teacher. This commitment, coupled with her dedication to her students, earned her the title of Lafayette County School District’s Teacher of the Year.
Gregory, who was voted Lafayette High School’s Teacher of the year by her peers and the school’s administration, has been the choir and music appreciation teacher for 10 years. She was then named the district teacher of the year after her one-page essay on what it means to be awarded the title was chosen by a committee made up of district employees.
Superintendent Adam Pugh said that Gregory’s essay stood out from the others because she wrote about the importance of constantly working to become a better educator and teaching students to care about their education.
Gregory, who also volunteers as Lafayette Middle School’s choir director, is motivated to become a better teacher because she wants to touch her students’ lives.
“As a teacher you hope that you’ve made a difference in someone’s life,” Gregory said. “It is the most important thing. You may not always know if you’ve made a difference in a child’s life until years later when they come back and tell you ‘I get it and I understand what you were trying to get us to do.’”
Gregory is also motivated by setting a good example for her students.
“I expect a lot out of my students. I really set the bar high. I don’t ask them to do anything that I’m not willing to do myself. When they see how hard I work, they are willing to put forth that kind of effort as well,” Gregory said.
Even though Gregory wrote the winning essay, she admits it was a difficult feat because she wasn’t allowed to mention anything that would give away her identity.
“It was hard to write about what it means to be teacher of the year when you can’t tell anything that you’ve done,” Gregory said. “For example, everyone would have known it was me if I had talked about taking my kids to Carnegie Hall.”
After finding out that the winning essay was Gregory’s, Pugh said she was very deserving of being named teacher of the year.
“Anybody who can better themselves while knowing she is retiring is what we are looking for in a teacher,” Pugh said.
“I couldn’t be teacher of the year without my amazing students,” Gregory said. “When I first came to Lafayette it was a struggle because the choir had not had success and they didn’t understand what kind of work was going to be involved to get that success. But once they got it, they never looked backed and it has been great ever since.”