Williams one of 24 up for Valvoline Teacher of the Year award

Jul. 27—Charlena Williams is a special education teacher at Hancock Middle School and one of 24 teachers who have received the Teacher Achievement Award for 2023.

These teachers will go on to qualify for the 2023 Kentucky Teacher of the Year Award, which will be announced in September.

"I was shocked and humbled when I found out I had been named one of the 24," Williams said. "I had spent an afternoon with my grandchildren at the fair and on my way home, my daughter called me and broke the news to me."

Williams has been teaching for 27 years, but she said it started well before that.

"When I was growing up, my mom said from the time I was old enough, I was always taking the younger kids and reading to them and trying to teach them," she said. "I spent a day with my mother at a doctors appointment with one of her friends who brought along her child and I taught them how to read."

Growing up across from Camp Koch in Troy, Indiana, a camp for disabled children, Williams would walk over and volunteer to help any chance she could get.

"We had a close family friend who had a daughter with Downs Syndrome," she said. "I have a value for everyone as they are."

Williams' teaching career began with two years in Indiana before transitioning into working in Kentucky.

"The caseload in Indiana is different than in Kentucky," she said. "A teacher working in Indiana may have 40 cases where as in Kentucky, they only have 17."

Williams spent 10 years teaching at Burns Middle School before moving closer to home in Hancock County and has worked in Hancock County for 15 years.

As the special education teacher, Williams teaches social skills using reading-based curriculums such as novels.

"Sometimes we use novels in which they will talk about the book and work within small groups using Kagan methods," she said. "Students will also come up with something they want to learn about and I will try to guide them to where they do it themselves. I try not to be the maestro."

Williams works mostly with students who are on the autism spectrum or have emotional and/or behavioral disorders now, but has worked with students who have had more critical and multiple disabilities in the past.

"Watching the students grow is my favorite part of teaching, along with reflecting on myself and seeing the growth my own mindset goes through," she said. "Everyone is capable of growing and learning. I have the luxury of seeing them come in as 6th graders and having them until they leave 8th grade. I feel blessed."

Through her 27 years as an educator, Williams said the biggest learning curve for her was through the COVID-19 pandemic, but that didn't stop her and her students from having a little bit of fun.

"Last year one of the things they did was make a coat for Dolly Parton," Williams said. "We started off with the song about her coat of many colors and we talked about how she is famous and students knew certain songs of hers but not about her as a person."

Williams said the students learned how to sew a straight stitch and once the coat was created, they mailed it to Parton.

"We are still waiting to hear back from her about if she received it," Williams said.