Tiffany Lewis is YCSD 2019 Teacher of the Year

April 25, 2019 at 12:05a.m.

Volney Rogers’ Tiffany Lewis named Teacher of the Year

YOUNGSTOWN

Tiffany Lewis was summoned to her school’s library for what she assumed would be a staff meeting.

Much to her surprise, however, she got more than she bargained for.

SDLqI’m excited, humbled and super-stoked. I’m so thankful and appreciative,” Lewis said after learning she had been named the Youngstown City School District’s 2019 Teacher of the Year.

Lewis, a Volney Rogers Elementary School first-grade teacher, was honored for her achievement during a ceremony Wednesday morning at the school, 2400 S. Schenley Ave., on the West Side.

Every year, principals from each city school choose a teacher who had submitted an application and written an essay, then a team of administrative personnel visits their classrooms to assess student engagement and instructional skills. Lewis was selected from a list of 14 district candidates, and she will be entered in the Ohio Department of Education’s Teacher of the Year process.

“I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. Nothing else was on my radar,” said Lewis, who comes from a family of educators and has taught 13 years, including seven in the district.

Helping her students in their academic and personal growth, watching them develop as readers, taking advantage of professional-development opportunities and providing tools for the first-graders to form connections and relationships in the classroom and beyond are top priorities for her, noted Lewis, who came to the ceremony with her husband, Dominic Lewis, and daughters Ava, 6, and Jordyn, 10.

“My students have a lot more ownership in their learning. I’m setting them up for real-world success,” Lewis said, adding that she often implements new resources and ideas partly to avoid creating a classroom that is stagnant.

Bearing witness to her students’ personal and academic growth each year, including their reading acumen, is another highly rewarding aspect of her position, she continued.

“She is determined; she is fierce. I mean, she dedicates her life to our students,” Principal Kelly Weeks observed. “She raises the bar, pushes them to reach their potential and goes above and beyond the call of duty for her students.”

Weeks added that Lewis also celebrates her students’ small accomplishments while mastering an ability to balance encouraging them to achieve academically with allowing them to know they’re being supported and loved.

“She’s everything I’d want in a teacher for my child,” Weeks said.

“She’s a leader in every aspect of the word.”

“She definitely goes the extra mile to support all of her students,” added Christine Sawicki, the district’s chief academic officer.