Madison County Schools recognizes 2023 Teachers of the Year

MARS HILL - Madison County Schools honored its teachers of the year Oct. 23 during a unique meeting at the Board of Education's historic Mars Hill Anderson Rosenwald School.

Seven Madison County Schools faculty, including six teachers and one principal, were recognized and presented plaques by the Madison County Board of Education during the special ceremony.

Brush Creek Elementary's Susan Jackson was selected Principal of the Year in the district.

"I am so thankful for the opportunity to have worked with so many amazing students, families, and educators in Madison County over the years," Jackson said. "The Principal of the Year recognition means so very much to me. I am honored to have the opportunity to represent MCS at the regional level."

Brush Creek also carries the distinction of having the District Teacher of the Year, as Ginger Foran was selected by her peers as the county's top educator.

Foran is a special education teacher.

"My philosophy of education is that all children can learn, so they deserve skilled and caring teachers who can help them achieve their full potential," Foran said. "As a special education teacher, I believe it is my job to bring the specialized knowledge and skills needed to enable students with disabilities to learn and succeed."

Joining Foran as the 2023 Madison County School Teachers of the Year were:

• Meghan Arnold Irby, Madison Early College High School.

• Jamie Briggs, Madison High School.

• Holly Massey, Mars Hill Elementary School.

• Tracey McDonald, Hot Springs Elementary School.

• Noe McHone, Madison Middle School.

Arnold Irby is Madison Early College High School's history/social studies chair and also teaches economics, a part of the state's new curriculum aimed at helping students learn about banking and mortgages.

"It's an absolute honor to be recognized at Madison Early College," she told The News-Record. "When I walked through the doors in 2020, I had no idea what to expect. It was the middle of COVID, and I was also coming back to the profession from a long hiatus.

"Now I can't imagine being anywhere else. This place is my home and the teachers and students are my family.

Massey, a kindergarten teacher, is in her 18th year in the profession.

"It is an honor to be recognized as Teacher of the Year at my school," Massey told The News Record. "I am blessed to work with an amazing team at Mars Hill Elementary School."

McHone is one of two science teachers at Madison Middle School, along with Bart Morrell.

McHone said he is fortunate to have the tutelage from teachers like Morrell, who makes the commute up the bypass from his home in Greeneville, Tenneesee, and returned to teaching at Madison Middle School after retiring with more than 30 years' teaching experience.

"He came here, and he just brings so much experience, depth of knowledge and a really easy manner around the kids. He doesn't get flustered," McHone said. "We bounce stuff off each other all the time. We trade resources. So, he's a big factor in making sure this job goes good."

McHone. who is in his 10th year teaching, said he also has the benefit of living with one of the best teachers he knows, as his wife is also a teacher at the school.

"The whole reason I'm a teacher, and the only reason I'm anywhere near the teacher that I am is because of a third grade teacher over there," Noe said of his wife, Jennifer McHone. "I mean, you want to talk about absolute educational rock 'n' roll star, you go look at her classroom. Even being in eighth grade, we bounce stuff off each other. Huge blessing to have somebody in the same field as you come home and be able to do stuff like that.

"She tempers a lot of my rough edges, and is a wealth of knowledge in, 'OK, have you tried this approach?'"

Prior to teaching, McHone worked for Ferguson, a commercial/mechanical/industrial piping company.

McHone said while the recognition ranks near the top of the list of his professional achievements, the award is secondary to the most recent end-of-grade results, for which the state Department of Public Instruction's western regional director lauded the school system on its advances in reading, math and science.

"Looking at their overall achievement scores, I'm way more proud of what Bart and I are able to do with the kids as far as their overall test scores," McHone said. "We're like tops in the state with the eighth grade science tests. I'm way more proud of that."

Charity Ray painting

The Mars Hill Anderson Rosenwald School is the only school of its kind still standing in Western North Carolina. The one-classroom building on Mount Olive Drive was constructed in 1929. Rosenwald schools, named for a wealthy retail executive who backed the effort, were built in the early 20th century to serve Black students across the country when segregation era laws prevented them from attending public schools then reserved for white students only.

The Friends of Mars Hill Anderson Rosenwald School formed in 2009 and established a planning committee to save the building.

The school now has three rooms: the instructional room, the museum room and the historical classroom. Friends has signed over the building to Madison County Schools, which now holds academic programming in the building. The local school board typically holds at least one annual meeting in the building.

In the Oct. 23 meeting, Willa Wyatt, a longtime Friends committee chair, presented the board with a painting of the historic school by Charity Ray, a Mars Hill Anderson Rosenwald School alumni whose work is featured in the school.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Madison County Schools recognizes 2023 Teachers of the Year