Teachers of the Year honored in Youngstown

youngstown city schools

2 to receive Teacher of the Year Award

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The Youngstown City Schools will host the annual Teacher of the Year Banquet from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the D.D. and Velma Davis Education & Visitor Center at Fellows Riverside Gardens in Mill Creek MetroParks.

State Sen. Joe Schiavoni of Boardman, D-33rd, will be the featured speaker.

Teachers Andrea Elberty and Andrea Patton will receive the 2014-2015 Teacher of the Year Award. Both women are intervention specialists who team-teach autistic students in second through sixth grades at William Holmes McGuffey Elementary School.

Elberty, who has taught in the city district for 23 years, attributes her decision to become a teacher to her mother, a former educational assistant at Leonard Kirtz School, and her teachers while a student at Kirkmere Elementary, Volney Rogers Jr. High School and Chaney High School.

“When I entered Youngstown State University in the fall of 1985, it was a given that I chose to become a teacher, and I proudly declared special education as my major — hopeful and optimistic in my desire to make a difference in the lives of the special-needs students that I would have the privilege of teaching,” she said.

Elberty is a graduate of YSU, earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees there in 1991 and 1996, respectively. She has served on the Chaney Literacy Team, Local Professional Development Committee, and participated in the Kindergarten Standards Roll Out and the Council for Exceptional Children. In addition, she has received a Youngstown Best Academic Practice School Award and Ameri-tech Foundation Impact Award.

Patton has taught in the city district for the past 28 years and also attributes her decision to become a special-education teacher to her mother, a former teacher at Garfield Elementary School, and a class field trip she attended.

“My greatest contribution and accomplishment in education is giving my students with autism the tools with which they can succeed in life. When you believe every student can soar beyond any imagined limits, with great patience, stamina, compassion and a lot of thinking outside the box, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,” she said.

Patton earned her bachelor’s from YSU in 1986 and her master’s in 1991. She has served on the Superintendent’s Think Tank, the Superintendent’s Spirit Committee for the OAA, the Positive Student Support Team and numerous curriculum and assessment committees. Patton has received a Giant Eagle Class Act Award, YSU Educational Foundation Award, Mahoning County Retired Teachers Award and YSU Excellence in Student Teaching Award.

Nominees from the following schools also will be honored at the banquet: Karen Cashier, Paul C. Bunn Elementary School; Melissa Forde, Rayen Early College Middle School; Leah Godoy, Harding Elementary School; Tricia Goodnough, Choffin Career & Technical Center; Meysha Harville, Youngstown Early College; Paul McConnell, Taft Elementary School; Delilah O’Casio Williams, East Campus; Manfred Michalski, Programs of Promise at Wilson; Sharon Ragan, Chaney Campus; Monique Smith, Williamson Elementary School; Evelyn Veal, Martin Luther King Elementary School; and Kelly Weeks, Discovery Program at Kirkmere.