TPSD announces 2023 Teacher and Administrator of the Year
Dec. 14—TUPELO — The Tupelo Public School District's 2023 Teacher of the Year is Chelsey Wilson, an English teacher at Tupelo High School, and the Administrator of the Year is Heather Cartwright, principal of Rankin Elementary School.
The two educators were awarded during the monthly TPSD Board of Trustees meeting held at the Church Street School auditorium Tuesday afternoon.
Wilson, a Starkville native, is in her fifth year as an 11th grade teacher at Tupelo High School.
She said she's honored and humbled to received the award and thanked her family for supporting her, former teachers from whom she learned and administrators who have guided her.
Her teaching philosophy involves getting to know her students and trying to help them where they're at while accepting no excuses.
"How can I be better every day? How can I do it just a little bit better?" Wilson asks herself while seeking to better serve her students.
After graduating from Starkville High School in 1997, Wilson earned her bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University.
In 2005, Wilson got her first teaching job as a seventh grade English Language Arts teaching in Utah's Nebo School District. She also worked as a Title I paraprofessional in Michigan and spent four years as a seminary teacher for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints before coming to Tupelo High School in 2018.
She currently serves as sponsor of the THS Book Club, co-sponsor of the Golden Lines Poetry Club and is a Professional Learning Committee leader.
She and her husband, Jared, have three children — Maile, John and Edith.
"Mrs. Wilson is what I would call a quiet, yet powerful educator," THS principal Melissa Thomas said. "She's a women of few words, but when she steps in front of her students to teach, her ideas, creativity and passion bring the instruction to life in a big way. In her own quiet and meek way, she changes lives every single day."
Wilson received a bouquet of flowers and engraved mantle clock from the district, along with a $1,000 check and plaque from CREATE's Toyota Wellspring Education Fund.
Cartwright, a native of Jumpertown, has served as principal of Rankin Elementary School for four years. The entirety of her 14-year tenure as an educator has been with TPSD.
She started out as a teacher at Parkway Elementary before serving as media specialist for the school. In 2016-17, she was named assistant principal at Lawndale Elementary before coming to Rankin as principal in 2019-20.
"I am very humbled, appreciative and excited," Cartwright said. "To be nominated to win this by my peers and my colleagues makes it even more special."
She strives to be a servant leader, never asking the teachers to do anything she wouldn't do. She seeks to empower her teachers and staff to grow just as much as the students do.
"This is for all of Rankin," Cartwright said. "It's not just me. Because every day, it's all of us coming into work. There's not one single person who could do it alone."
She and her husband, Clint, have two daughters — Ella, a fifth-grader at Rankin, and Emmy, a first-grader at Joyner.
"Mrs. Cartwright is an excellent principal who leads by example," TPSD Superintendent Rob Picou said. "She and her staff have done an excellent job at Rankin, raising expectations and meeting them. Her passion for education is contagious."
Cartwright received a bouquet of flowers and engraved mantle clock from the district to commemorate her award.
Wilson and Cartwright are now eligible for Mississippi's State Teacher and Administrator of the Year awards, which will be announced in spring 2023.
