Teachers of the Year

Each year, the Columbia County School District honors those teachers who stand out amongst an already overflowing field of excellent educators. The year-long process culminates in an annual Teacher of the Year Banquet. Through contributions from our valued Partners in Education, each year we are able to shower all of our Teachers of the Year, with a delicious dinner with their families and some amazing rewards for going above and beyond the call for excellence. This banquet is where we announce the winner from a group of Top 5 Finalists.

The process all starts in the classroom. Each of our 31 schools selects a teacher representative. Typically, schools select Teachers of the Quarter during the year, and at the end of the year, they put those Teachers of the Quarter on a ballot and the teachers select the overall winner to represent their school in the running for the District Teacher of the Year. The Top 5 Finalists are announced at a Board of Education meeting.

Once the school-level Teachers of the Year are selected, they complete an online application based on the Georgia State Teacher of the Year competition. A panel of judges scores the applications electronically.

Next, we bring in three judges over the summer, who are educators themselves from outside our school district, to individually rate each of the 31 Teacher of the Year applications. We make sure the applications are anonymous so that there is no opportunity for bias. The judges score the applications on a 100 point scale. The top five scores are our Finalists and that information is held confidentially until August when the Top Five Finalists are named.

Then using the same three outside judges, the five Finalists are each observed for 30 minutes in a classroom, followed by a 20-minute interview with the judges. All observations are done on the same day. Afterward, the three judges decide who the top candidate is based on what they saw in the classroom and heard in the interview.

After the winner is announced at the Teacher of the Year banquet, they have until December to tweak their application to be entered in the competition for Georgia's State Teacher of the Year, which is announced in the Spring.

We are so proud of all of our Teachers of the Year across our district's history! If you are interested in becoming a Partner in Education to help support our efforts to reward and recognize success in our teachers, please contact (706) 541-2723 for more information. Or visit the Communications Department online.