A special quarterly section of Columbus Monthly
Meet the outstanding educators who earned accolades in our 10th awards program.
Page 56
EDITED BY JULANNE HOHBACH
Educational Excellence
Our 2024 Teachers of the Year go the extra mile to help their students succeed.
By Julanne Hohbach
Photos by Tim Johnson
Teaching is a rewarding job, no doubt, but it comes with a fair share of challenges. From staying on top of technology to keeping students attentive and engaged in the digital age, a career in education now involves much more than doling out lessons in reading, math and social studies.
In recognition of all they do, Columbus Parent and Columbus Monthly are partnering to recognize outstanding
educators through our long-running Teachers of the Year awards. The program, in its 10th year, honors outstanding K-12 teachers throughout Central Ohio, divided into elementary, middle school and high school categories.
Readers nominated teachers online from March 7 to April 5. Submissions came from parents, current and former students, administrators, colleagues and family members. Nominated teachers
came from public and private schools throughout the Columbus region. Our editorial staffs reviewed all the submissions, did some independent research and then narrowed the list to 15 finalists.
Winners were selected through a public voting process, which ran May 24 through June 19.
Congratulations to all of the 2024 honorees.
Tracy Imamura, Fort Hayes Arts & Academic High School
Tiffany Erdelt, Raymond Elementary School
PHOTOS: TIM JOHNSON
OUR 2024 FINALISTS
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Lisa Colahan, Stevenson Elementary School, Grandview Heights Schools
Amy Day, Darby Woods Elementary School, South-Western City School District
Tiffany Erdelt, Raymond Elementary School, Marysville Exempted Village School District
Jillian Hinkson, East Columbus Elementary School, Columbus City Schools
Tamara Schmidt, Norwich Elementary School, Hilliard City School District
MIDDLE SCHOOL
Korey Black, Worthingway Middle School, Worthington City School District
Bruce Carlson, Dominion Middle School, Columbus City Schools
Isabella Dawes, Heritage Middle School, Hilliard City School District
Jennifer Felbaum, Columbus Collegiate Academy - Main Street, United Schools Network
Erica Hitzhusen, Worthingway Middle School, Worthington City School District
HIGH SCHOOL
Betsy Higginbotham, West High School, Columbus City Schools
Tracy Imamura, Fort Hayes Arts & Academic High School, Columbus City Schools
Alex Jacky, Columbus Academy
Paul Johnson, Marion Franklin High School, Columbus City Schools
Emily Meister, Grandview Heights High School, Grandview Heights Schools
Bruce Carlson, Dominion Middle School
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL WINNER
Tiffany Erdelt
RAYMOND ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Marysville Exempted Village School District
By Chuck Nelson
Longtime kindergarten teacher Tiffany Erdelt has welcomed many students to Raymond Elementary School, so it’s fitting she was one of the first staff members incoming principal Erica Sypek met upon arriving last year. It didn’t take long for Sypek to understand Erdelt’s popularity among students and their families.
“She’s that first experience that our students have, and she makes it a positive one,” Sypek says, noting that Erdelt always puts her students first. “She treats them with all the same love and nurturing she would if they were her own children.”
Erdelt is so well known in the Raymond community that some families request to be in her class, Sypek says. “She’s just a great addition to the team.”
Twenty of Erdelt’s 25 years in teaching have been spent in kindergarten classes, with most of those in the Marysville Exempted Village School District. She’s also taught second, third and fourth grade. “I absolutely love their energy and their excitement for learning,” Erdelt says of her “kinders.” “Their excitement to learn is something that keeps me going every day.”
While she remembers playing school as a child growing up in Columbus, teaching wasn’t her first career choice. The Lewis Center resident, 52, received a degree in criminology from Ohio State University in 1995 with the goal of working with troubled youth. “I have a helping nature,” she says. “I knew I wanted a job where I could help people and be an influence in people’s lives.”
That desire eventually led to education. She returned to school and completed a degree in elementary education at the University of Rio Grande in 1998, followed by a master’s in classroom education there in 2004. She has taught in the
“I believe that teaching happens at home and in the classroom, and we have to be on board together.”
Marysville district since 2006.
“Not every teacher can handle kindergarten,” Sypek says. “She’s a hard worker. She’s very creative. She’s always that person who has a smile on her face and asks, ‘What can I do to help?’ ”
Three grandsons of retired educator Merrlyn Cahill have passed through what she calls “Miss Erdelt’s Finishing School.” Cahill nominated Erdelt for the award, noting the “safe, positive and happy tone” she sets in the classroom.
Cahill’s grandson Jack “had a wonderful experience” in Erdelt’s class, she says. Jack was thrilled when his brother Vincent got Erdelt a few years later. And both boys were excited for younger brother Mikey when he got Erdelt as a teacher.
“She knew how to motivate the kids,” Cahill says. “They were doing fun things in class as they were learning.”
Erdelt says she tries to create handson experiences to keep her students engaged. “I’m really impressed with how she gets students to enjoy reading,” says Cahill, a former English teacher.
“She gets them excited about the authors, themes in the book,” she says. That excitement carried through to summer reading programs at the local library.
“I love teaching kids how to read,” says Erdelt, who uses different character voices during read-alouds. “That’s my favorite part of the day.”
While Erdelt clearly connects with her students, Sypek and Cahill also praise her communication and outreach to parents and extended family. “She loves to make connections with her families,” Sypek says.
Teaching is a collaborative effort, says Erdelt, who uses newsletters and social media to give families a way to see what’s happening at school. “I believe that teaching happens at home and in the classroom, and we have to be on board together,” she says. That includes inviting family members in to talk about their careers or to participate as “mystery readers.”
“Getting a nomination like this doesn’t happen very often. For someone to recognize the hard work that she’s put in is huge,” Sypek says. “The fact that our school community and families value her says a lot about her as a person.”
Erdelt says teaching can be demanding and stressful at times, particularly when a kindergartner is struggling.
“You always have those kiddos that you’re just not reaching, and you have to be a problem solver,” she says, figuring out different approaches to meet students’ emotional and behavioral needs.
But she manages to find ways to keep herself grounded.
“I just try to remember my reason why,” she says. “And my reason is the kids.”
There’s a lot to question about the world today. And he’s asking.
It’s our job to make sure he’s ready. We empower him to ignite his curiosity and develop an appetite for learning as well as the confidence to live with intention. It’s the difference between simply achieving and thriving.
#CAnotherWorld
Ready to thrive.
MIDDLE SCHOOL WINNER
Bruce Carlson
Columbus City Schools
By Chuck Nelson
When Dominion Middle School principal Dottie Flanagan interviewed Bruce Carlson for an opening in the music department 15 years ago, she thought his ideas for the program might be overly ambitious.
“But he’s managed to reach them,” she says. And then some.
When he started at Dominion, the school had 30 instruments—all broken. “Not every kid can afford an instrument. We had way more kids than instruments,” Carlson says about his first years at the school, which moved in 2020 from East Dominion Boulevard to the former North High School.
Fundraising through a new band booster program helped change that. Now, the school has more than 150 working instruments. “It’s transformed a lot of lives,” Carlson says. “If they have a decent instrument, they’re going to sound a lot better.”
“Bruce was really resourceful at finding ways to get instruments in these kids’ hands,” says Jenna McGuinness of Clintonville, who nominated Carlson for the award. Her son Noah was among those who benefitted from the music program. “My son was not a strong student before he came to Dominion,” says McGuinness, “and now he’s an honor roll student”—an achievement she attributes in part to the confidence he acquired through band.
Carlson, 60, who lives in Lewis Center with his wife, Molly, and children Nels and Anna, planned to be a veterinarian, but developed terrible allergies to cats and dogs during his college years.
His mother—a flute player who taught in the Cleveland area—got him involved
Smile Brighter
“They realize that they all matter. There’s no second string in band.”
in music, buying him a baritone horn in 1973. “I always dreamed of being the quarterback for Ohio State or being in the Ohio State marching band. The quarterback thing didn’t work out,” Carlson says with a laugh, “but I was in the band.”
Ohio State University marching band director Paul Droste pointed him toward teaching. “He’s one of my great mentors,” Carlson says.
After playing in the Best Damn Band in the Land, Carlson graduated from OSU in 1990 with a degree in music and earned a master’s in 1999 at the University of Akron. He worked at elementary schools in Columbus and at Northland High School before arriving at Dominion in 2009.
Carlson’s band program now includes two beginning, one intermediate and two advanced bands in grades 6-8; a drumline; and a 25-piece big band. He enjoys working with students, “getting to go on the big stage and perform with them, sharing that joy with them,” he says. “Just seeing their faces light up when they
realize they’ve done something great.”
It starts with a culture of teamwork, Carlson says. At the beginning of the year, he likes to pass out pieces from a jigsaw puzzle and have students write their names on the back. It’s a way to illustrate that they’re all “a little piece of a bigger, beautiful thing,” he says. “It takes everybody to make this picture.
“They realize that they all matter. There’s no second string in band.”
Raising money to fund the program is a constant challenge, but it’s easier due to buy-in from the students and their parents, he says. That funding also allows the school’s musicians to make an annual trip to a band contest at Cedar Point. “They’ve been one of the top bands up there every year, and I’m really proud of that,” Carlson says. His students also played at a Columbus Blue Jackets game last year, which was a highlight for many members.
“He’s been very influential for my son and a lot of other kids,” McGuinness says of Carlson. “They just want to make him proud.”
Winning a Teachers of the Year award is “very humbling,” says Carlson, who also received a Columbus Symphony Orchestra Music Educator Award in 2017. “This is really a group award, not just me, because so many people work together to make this a wonderful, memorable organization. The good Lord has blessed me in many ways, and this is one of them.”
He’s currently organizing “a giant celebration band” of alumni and current members for the school’s 100th anniversary on Aug. 31. In his spare time, he plays with the Grove City Community Winds to stay sharp.
“He’s just an all-around great guy, a passionate educator and great musician,” says Flanagan. “He instills in [the students] a love of music, and that’s something you take with you the rest of your life.”
HIGH SCHOOL WINNER
Tracy Imamura
FORT HAYES ARTS & ACADEMIC HIGH SCHOOL Columbus City Schools
By Chuck Nelson
Fort Hayes Arts & Academic High School Japanese teacher Tracy Imamura fulfills her passion for languages and culture both in and out of the classroom. When the pandemic interrupted international travel, it halted a long-running exchange program between Imamura’s students and their peers at Asahikawa Jitsugyo High School in Hokkaido, Japan.
Not content to let it fall by the wayside, Imamura worked to get the program up and running again. Students and a teacher from Hokkaido visited Columbus in March, and some of Imamura’s students are traveling to Japan next year.
Reviving the program required a lot of effort—educating and organizing new host families, arranging transportation and planning visits to local sights— which Imamura did in addition to her regular teaching duties, says Kristen Skiles, a French teacher at Fort Hayes who nominated Imamura for the award.
“All our kids were enthralled with the experience,” says Skiles. “It was beautiful to see it all come together.”
“I just love languages and different cultures,” Imamura says. In addition to teaching Japanese at Fort Hayes and AIMS Arts Impact Middle School, she’s learning Spanish, speaks French and participates in a French book club online. “Whatever I do seems to be about language or a culture.”
When Imamura travels to Japan to visit her husband Yoichi’s family, she’s also on the lookout for materials to use in her classroom. It’s one more way to motivate students and keep them—and herself— current with Japanese culture and new vocabulary.
Connecting with students and bringing a piece of the world to them that they might not otherwise know or see in per-
“I tell my students, ‘I don’t care what country you go to—it doesn’t have to be Japan—but you have to, at some point, travel overseas.’ ”
son is her goal, she says. “I tell my students, ‘I don’t care what country you go to—it doesn’t have to be Japan—but you have to, at some point, travel overseas and see how people live, see the different cultures,’ ” she says. “I think everyone should do that around the world. I think that would help us have a better understanding of each other.”
Imamura’s interest in world cultures was sparked in high school when her family, who lived in Springfield, hosted a French foreign exchange student. “We are, 35 years later, still friends,” Imamura, 53, says. “I just saw her in June, and she’s coming to visit me in November.”
Imamura, who lives in Dublin with her husband and sons Zachary and Maxwell, graduated from Ohio State University with bachelor’s degrees in international relations and Japanese in 1995 and returned for a master’s degree in education in 2001. She taught English in Japan for four years after spending a year there during college.
Imamura is one among just a handful of Japanese teachers in Central Ohio. According to the Ohio Department of Education, only 38 districts or community schools offer the language. Of the 320,472 students studying a language other than English in 2022-23, only 1,420 took Japanese—a far cry from the 212,532 who took Spanish.
“It’s a unique lane and she’s so good,” says Milton Ruffin, principal/director of the Fort Hayes Metropolitan Education Center. “She creates such an enthusiasm.” Ruffin says Imamura is “a teacher leader” who shares with the whole staff. “Just a real asset. The kind of teacher you want on your team.”
“Tracy has always been at the forefront of, ‘Let’s try something new,’ ” says Skiles. In addition to the exchange program, Imamura takes advantage of opportunities organized by the Japan-America Society of Central Ohio, including its annual Ohio Japan Bowl quiz competition, which Fort Hayes hosted in February. “That’s exciting because they get to meet other students from around the state who are studying Japanese like they are,” she says. “We practice for that and use some of that in the classroom.”
Her students also participate in the Japanese National Honor Society and a national competition to design New Year’s cards (nengajo).
“She uses a lot of fun technology when she’s teaching,” says Ruffin, as well as interactive “bell ringer” warm-up questions and games with alphabet songs and rap songs in Japanese. “She’s committed to giving kids on-ramps to a language that’s kind of complicated.”
“I feel fortunate because I’m doing my dream job,” says Imamura.
PHOTO: TIM JOHNSON