Teacher of the Year Program

The Alabama Teacher of the Year Program is a recognition program that honors teachers throughout the state. In conjunction with the National Teacher of the Year Program that began in 1952, the program is one of the most prestigious teacher recognition programs in the country.

Alabama is pleased to honor and celebrate the current Alabama Teacher of the Year.

PURPOSE

The Alabama Teacher of the Year Program seeks annually to honor and recognize excellence in the teaching profession by identifying outstanding Alabama classroom teachers at local, district, and state levels.

DUTIES

The Alabama Teacher of the Year serves as a full-time ambassador for the teaching profession for one year by speaking to civic and professional organizations, P-12 schools, colleges and universities; conducting workshops for teachers; and writing newspaper and
magazine articles.

ELIGIBILITY

The Alabama Teacher of the Year Program is open to any public school certified classroom teacher, librarian, counselor, or other certified individual whose major responsibility is to work with children in a P-12 setting and provide learning opportunities to meet the academic goals and graduation requirements set by the Alabama State Board of Education. Individuals must be selected by the faculty at the participating school and serving in a capacity for which they hold proper certification.

ADMINISTRATION

The program is administered by the Alabama State Department of Education. Travel expenses for the Teacher of the Year and Alternate Teacher of the Year are paid by the Alabama Teacher of the Year Program.

The Selection Process

This application form may be photocopied as needed. For the purpose of this program, an elementary teacher is one who works in Grades P through 6 and a secondary teacher is one who works in Grades 7 through 12. The middle school teacher is considered an elementary teacher or a secondary teacher as determined by the major portion of the school day spent in teaching Grades P through 6 (elementary) or Grades 7 through 12 (secondary). Nominees should be grouped accordingly and must be full time.

School Level

A Teacher of the Year selection committee should be appointed at the school level to solicit nominees and select the school’s Teacher(s) of the Year (elementary and/or secondary).
The school-level Teacher of the Year selection committee should be composed of:

• Principal
• Parent organization representative
• Teacher
• Student representative
• School counselor or school librarian (if no counselor or librarian serves the school, a second classroom teacher should be selected by the committee).

The school-level Teacher of the Year selection committee, under the guidance of the principal, should make information about the program available to all faculty, parent organizations, and students. After making its selection, the application(s) should be forwarded to the school system superintendent for participation in the school system-level selection.

School System Level

The school system-level Teacher of the Year selection committee should be appointed to receive the nominations from each school and to select from those nominations a school system elementary Teacher of the Year and/or a school system secondary Teacher of the Year. The committee should be composed of:

• Superintendent
• School board member
• Parent organization representative
• Elementary teacher
• Secondary teacher

Once the school system-level selection committee has chosen its Teacher of the Year honorees, the applications should be forwarded to the Alabama State Department of Education.

District Level

The applications of the honorees from each local school system will be reviewed by a district-level Teacher of the Year selection committee in each of the eight Alabama State Board of Education districts. Each committee will select a district elementary Teacher of the Year and a district secondary Teacher of the Year for a total of 16 district honorees.
Each district-level committee should be composed of:

• District representative on the Alabama State Board of Education
• Local superintendent
• Local board of education member
• Two business representatives
• Current District Elementary Teacher of the Year
• Current District Secondary Teacher of the Year
• Dean of education from a college or university

Each committee will evaluate applications from a district other than its own.

State Level

The state-level Teacher of the Year selection committee will be composed of the outgoing Alabama Teacher of the Year or Alternate Alabama Teacher of the Year and representatives of the following:

• Alabama State Board of Education
• State Superintendent of Education
• Alabama Association of Colleges of Teacher Education
• Alabama Association of School Boards
• Alabama Conference of Educators
• Alabama Congress of Parents and Teachers
• Alabama Education Association
• A-Plus Education Partnership
• Alabama Milken Educators’ Network
• Council for Leaders in Alabama Schools
• School Superintendents of Alabama
• Media and Business Community
• Higher Education

Once the 16 district teachers have been selected, each teacher will be required to submit a
10- to 15-minute video from his or her classroom via a flash drive or download link. The state-level Teacher of the Year selection committee will receive the video and select four finalists.
The committee will then schedule and conduct personal interviews with these four nominees.
From these top four, the committee will select the Alabama Teacher of the Year and the Alternate Alabama Teacher of the Year. One will be an elementary teacher and one will be a secondary teacher.