Going into her 5th year of teaching, Mrs. Stephanie Hosansky thought she had all the tools to be successful. This past year was her first year teaching 5th grade at a new school and it’s proven to be the most difficult yet. "My number one goal for coming here was to reach the students and help them become the best versions of themselves," Mrs. Hosansky says. She persevered through the tough moments and both set clear expectations with her students and gave them the support they needed to meet those expectations. By the end of the year, Mrs. Hosansky's classroom was full of star students – many exceeding benchmark performance on their exams.
In turn, her students wanted to show their gratitude and remind her of the impact she made on them. So her students wanted to surprise her with a nomination for the WE Teachers Award from Walgreens, which celebrates teachers who go above and beyond for their students. We aimed to highlight the benefits of this program and highlight Mrs.Hosanky as an incredible educator.
Today's teachers like Mrs. Hosansky are more than educators; they are mentors, cheerleaders, and counselors, too. Yet, at a time when more is expected, many teachers feel unprepared to address the critical social issues that are impacting their classrooms. That's why Walgreens, in partnership with the ME to WE Foundation and Mental Health America, developed a new program, WE Teachers, which provides all teachers access to free tools and resources. The goal of this program is to address topics their students face, like youth violence or mental health and wellbeing.
To showcase this program and to showcase what an impact teachers can have on their students, we organized a special day for Mrs. Hosansky. Along with the surprise, we conducted interviews with several of her student, who had all written letters nominating Mrs. Hosanaky for the WE Teacher Award. As they read aloud all of the reasons they think she was “more than a teacher”, Mrs. Hosansky is watching on a monitor just outside the classroom. We see the genuine love her students have for her and hear that being nominated for the award has "really made me feel like I've made a difference this year."
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