McKinley STEM School teacher honored

STEUBENVILLE -- McKinley STEM School's Heather Hoover was teary-eyed Wednesday when two of her students stood at the front of the classroom and thanked her for being such a good teacher.

"We really appreciate her 'coz she's amazing," the girls said.

Hoover was selected last month as National Project Lead the Way Launch Teacher of the Year, and on Wednesday, PLTW officials joined students, staff and school administrators in celebrating the award -- surprising her first when they walked into her classroom to present the award and sit in on a lesson. Then, when class was over, students and teachers lined the hallways -- the students waving banners with her picture on them, teachers jiggling cow bells as she passed on her way to the gymnasium, where family and friends were waiting.

"This is a really big honor," said Dave Dimmett, president and CEO of Project Lead the Way, pointing out there are 100,000 PLTW teachers in America -- 40,000 of them at the elementary level, like Hoover. "So there's 40,000 teachers doing this -- and we're recognizing one of them as National Teacher of the Year for PLTW Launch, which is a hands-on project problem based STEM curriculum for elementary students."

As a PLTW lead teacher, Hoover provides all staff in Steubenville City Schools with Project Lead the Way Launch training and professional development and as the lead teacher for Steubenville City Schools, oversees all students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade.

"She just stands out as somebody who gets young people excited about learning," Dimmett said. "She's excited about learning. She has a passion for it. Her students see that it's contagious, and the work that she's done not just with the students but with other educators to make sure students are not just excited (about) learning, but also prepared for really bright and wonderful futures."

Established 26 years ago, PLTW's mission is to create a "transformative learning environment and empower students to develop in-demand knowledge and skills necessary to thrive in an evolving world" -- bucking states' continued reliance on standardized test scores as a measure of school success.

"There's a lot of pressure on very basic things in school -- getting students to show up, getting students to, you know, pass basic math and other graduation requirements," Dimmett said. "What they do in a PLTW class is much more than that -- they're applying what they learned, they're solving real problems, relevant problems. They're getting exposed to careers that they wouldn't otherwise get exposed to. And by doing that, what we see is students ... getting excited about learning, in many cases for the first time in their lives -- that's what we want. That's the magic, so that when they leave school, learning isn't something that just happens in a room in a building down the street, learning happens everywhere. A lot of it's really reconnecting students and educators with that sense of wonder and curiosity that we all had at one point in our lives."

Mayor Jerry Barilla and Fifth Ward Councilman Willie Paul joined the celebration, along with Steubenville City Schools Superintendent Melinda Young who said she was "really excited" Heather was selected as the national honoree.

"It really shows her hard work and dedication," Young said. "She works year-round coming up with new ideas."

Afterward, Hoover said she was honored, not just with the award but also with the reaction of her students, coworkers and bosses.

"I appreciate everything that Mr. Reeves (McKinley Principal Donnie Reeves) and his staff did here for me, definitely," Hoover said. "(And I) thank the members of PLTW for making the trip down here to recognize myself, but it's really not just me: It's the support of the administration, the support of staff and it's also the students, (seeing) their excitement. When I go into a classroom and we start a new project and it's all hands-on and it's geared toward a career track, just to see their inquisitive minds start thinking about where they want to be in the future and what careers they want to take on -- that's the exciting part of it."