Stewart named Clarksville Community Schools teacher of the year

May 19—CLARKSVILLE — Clarksville Community Schools is celebrating the dedication and accomplishments of a teacher who has played an important role in the district's performing arts program.

Emily Stewart, choral director at Clarksville High School, was named teacher of the year for the entire district at a Thursday event. The annual "Investing in Teachers Teacher of the Year" program began in 2018, and this year marked the return of the in-person celebration.

Winners were first selected at the building level through a nomination and application process, and after winners went through interviews, the three candidates were selected as candidates for the district-wide honor.

Stewart was named teacher of the year at Clarksville High School. Finalists also included Sally Wade, a reading interventionist at Clarksville Elementary, and Dakota Jackson, a language arts teacher at Clarksville Middle School.

Clarksville High School Senior Tori Potts nominated Stewart for Teacher of the Year, saying the choral teacher has taught her not only about music, but also "how to be an amazing, well-rounded human being."

Stewart has taught in Clarksville Community Schools for five years. She works with students both in the middle school and high school, and she is known as "Mama Stew" to many of her students.

She was "shocked" when she named the district's teacher of the year, and she did not expect to win, she said. She described the other finalists as "phenomenal educators."

"I'm so grateful to work here at Clarksville," she said. "I'm so grateful that every day I get to teach such amazing students."

Stewart said she has a T-shirt with the words "some people wait all their lives to meet their favorite musicians, and I get to teach mine."

"Ever since I saw that T-shirt, I have just lived that and completely believed that, because I get to teach amazing musicians every single day," she said. "We make music together, and that's a really special thing, and making art through sound is a really special thing."

Her work as an educator is not just her job, it is her identity, Stewart said. She enjoys the "lightbulb moments."

"The moment that a kid is struggling with an answer and they can't quite get it, or they can't quite get an interval in a piece of music or they're struggling with their technique — the moment that lightbulb goes on...that's what it's all about," she said. "It's exactly what we're trying to do. We're trying to get all these little lightbulbs to turn on so we can light up the world."

Stewart has played a major role in leading theater productions over the past five years, and she took over Clarksville High School's production of "Little Shop of Horrors" while late theater director Dan Bullington, known as "Mr. B," was battling terminal cancer. Bullington died earlier this year.

Clarksville High School Principal Adrienne Goldman said she has enjoyed watching Stewart "grow as a teacher and a leader at the secondary level over the past five years," saying she has "transformed our choral department."

"She has set high expectations for students and continually risen to the occasion under her leadership," she said. "She doesn't just teach students to sing...she encourages you to be good humans and leaders where your strengths lie."

Clarksville Middle School Principal Nikki Bullington was Dan Bullington's partner, and she is proud of Stewart for what she has achieved.

"It's been a very hard year for her as well with what we went through with Dan and losing Dan — he loved her more than anything, and she's done an amazing job to represent the theater program the way it deserves to be," she said. "He'd be so proud of her."

Clarksville Community Schools Superintendent Tina Bennett congratulated Stewart and all of the finalists. She said two of the three Teacher of the Year finalists will be submitted as candidates for the statewide Teacher of the Year honor, including Stewart.

The Teacher of the Year program is sponsored by ARC. Through this sponsorship, the finalists received $250, and Stewart received $1,000 as the district-wide winner.