Wilkes County Teacher of the Year LaVonda Tanner has high expectations of her students. In LaVonda Tanner’s seven years at Washington-Wilkes Elementary School, she’s had a hand in taking the school from the “Needs Improvement” list to “distinguished school,” and her ability to flow with the changes and work, learn, and grow has been recognized by her peers. For her efforts, she has been selected Wilkes County Teacher of the Year for 2007.

Her selection puts her in a yearlong competition with teachers from all over the state, culminating in the selection of a state-wide Teacher of the Year in March 2006. “It all happened so quick. We got our plaques for school Teacher of the Year Monday night, then we were interviewed Tuesday, and they announced the winner Tuesday afternoon,” she said.

“The neat thing about Mrs. Tanner,” said her principal Wanda Jenkins, “is that she has the same goals and high expectations and plans for her children as any other teacher. Just because her children have been diagnosed and labeled as children with ‘special needs,’ she doesn’t cut them any slack, doesn’t lower her expectations of them at all. She teaches them as if they’re going to be the valedictorian of their class one day. And that has a definite impact on their ability to achieve.”

Teaching reading and language arts to four classes of special education fourth graders and two classes of sixth graders, Tanner has been putting into practice the inclusion co-teaching model being used in Wilkes County. In that model, special educators and paraprofessionals support what the general teacher is teaching, she said, providing modifications and accommodations where needed for any for special needs students.

“All children are affected by inclusion,” she told the panel of ToY judges. “Special needs children are given more challenging opportunities within the general education classroom, and social interaction with peers. General education students are given another adult to help when help is needed, and they’re exposed to children who have special needs.”

Bringing up the scores of special ed students was critical to saving the school from a threatened restructuring plan several years ago. “Each member of the faculty was given the task of improving the school and our test scores,” she told the judges. “I made many changes within my classroom and with my teaching strategies to help my students succeed, since the special needs population was one of the subgroups that was scoring so poorly at the time.”

With hard work and the willingness to try new things, she said, she and her students accomplished the goal. The school met AYP standards in 2004, and again this year. The school stands ready to be recognized as a Title 1 Distinguished School in the near future, she said.

And now a panel of educators from outside Wilkes County has recognized those efforts by choosing Tanner. “LaVonda is the first Teacher of the Year from the elementary school in a dozen years or more,” Jenkins said. “That makes it more special to us.” Tanner was nominated as Teacher of the Year last year by Janie Cravens, and this year she was nominated by Jenkins.

A product of Wilkes County, LaVonda Tanner is married to Phil, and mother of Wes, 5, and Britt, 2. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Early Childhood Education and Master of Education degree in Interrelated Special Education from Augusta State University. She is pursuing her Educational Specialist degree through Piedmont College and expects to complete the program in 2006.

Very active in the community, Tanner coaches and sponsors soccer and T-ball teams, working the Tiger Club concession stand at high school games, taking part in Heart Walks and prayer walks, and supporting Tiger football with her husband.

“And before school, at 7 a.m., she goes to tutor a homebound student,” her principal said. “She’s amazing.”