Teacher of the year announced, Walt and Gary Baumstark Jr., winner, poses with Gary Sr. and Eli Baumstark at the ceremony to honor the title, Feb. 26. “I was very humbled and honored to receive such an honor,” Baumstark said. “To be recognized by my peers and so many teachers that I have long respected and looked up to– that they would see fit to honor me–it is one of the greatest accomplishments of my professional career. Having my family around me was a nice surprise. I wasn’t expecting them to come. Apparently they had known about it for about a week but kept it from me. Sharing that recognition was nice. My classes we’re all great. Everyone was super excited. I even had students who are not currently my students coming by my class and congratulating me.”
EBN | 2018 Teacher of the Year
The EHS Teacher of the Year Committee announce that Gary Baumstark won Teacher of the Year at a meeting open to the public before school, Feb. 26.
Students, parents, administrators and fellow teachers could nominate a teacher for T.O.Y., Dec. 1-Jan. 5. Teresa Yakel, Teacher of the Year committee member, distributed the form to all students through their school emails.
Then, a committee read through each nomination and narrowed the list down to five finalists. Lastly, teachers received a ballot via email that contained a bio, photo and quotes from the nomination forms for each of the five finalists. Feb. 12-16. That teacher vote determined the winner.
Baumstark teaches Language Arts 9, AP Language Arts and Science Fiction Literature. Baumstark will join a pool of the other schools’ finalists from which a Rockwood Teacher of the Year will be determined. That person will go on to compete for Missouri Teacher of the Year.
Meet the finalists.
