A sixth-grade math teacher at Brentwood Middle School felt “seen and valued” by her teachers when her best friend died during her middle school years.
Now, four years after starting her middle school teaching career, she’s feeling seen and valued for her contributions to Greeley-Evans District 6 thanks to the Success Foundation’s Success in 6 Awards.
In late January, the Success Foundation hosted its sixth annual Success in 6 Awards to recognize District 6 staff in a wide variety of positions from rookies to leaders, according to Julie Hill, the executive director of the Success Foundation.
The Success Foundation aims to advance youth education and build a strong and healthy community by bringing resources together in support of preschool to 12th-grade education, according to its website.
Starting in November, administrators, teachers, parents, students or community members can nominate their favorite educator in the appropriate Success Foundation categories. This year’s categories included Educator of the Year for elementary, middle and high school, Rookie of the Year, a Leader Among Leaders and the Heart and Soul award that recognizes classified and specialized service professionals.
A large committee then helps select the winners based on the nomination details. Hill said the foundation encourages a nomination that’s as complete and thorough as possible so the committee can best get to know the contenders.
Each year, the number of nominees increases, Hill said. This year, the Success Foundation had 127 nominees. Because of the growth, this year’s awards became the largest gathering yet with more than 300 people in attendance.
“As more people get to attend the event, I think they see the magic around it,” Hill said. “It’s just really an opportunity to celebrate the work that’s been done in District 6.”
Lauren Morford, a sixth-grade math teacher at Brentwood Middle School, took home one of three Educator of the Year awards. She felt honored to be a fourth-year teacher in a category with longtime educators who have become close friends, mentors and role models to her.
“People see the work I’m doing, they see the hours I’m putting in every day, the relationships I’m building with students, the endless conversations and corrections and all the day-to-day,” Morford said. “I felt so incredibly seen, so honored and honestly, very, very humbled just to be chosen out of the incredible other people that were also nominated.”
To keep and retain quality teachers, educators need to feel appreciated through efforts such as the Success in 6 awards, according to Morford. A nomination from a colleague showed her encouragement to continue doing a job that can feel thankless.
Middle school students don’t always say “thank you” to their teachers who force them to take a math test or push them to try harder, she said. But not every adult has the patience to teach middle schoolers — yet her students have become the reason she gets out of bed every day.
“I specifically wanted to be a middle school teacher, because I think that middle school students have so much potential and so much ability to change the world,” Morford said. “The way they view the world is just so interesting and unique.”
Brentwood has become one big family of students and staff to Morford. The leadership at her school has allowed her to take risks and try new things to help engage her students in math, a subject that people don’t normally equate with fun. Morford, however, works to make it fun, such as when she taught her students about rates by determining how fast they could do the chicken dance per minute.
“I am really allowed to dream here,” Morford said.
The Success Foundation also added Choice Awards to the roster of categories this year to recognize teachers who have stood out to the foundation in its funding areas, such as SmartLabs.
Two Smartlab instructors from S. Christa McAuliffe STEM Academy — Terry Highfield, an elementary school instructor, and Taylor Plantt, a middle school instructor — won awards for their contributions to the Success Foundation’s vision.
“It was pretty awesome and totally unexpected,” Highfield said. “It was fun to win the award with Taylor because we are a team here at McAuliffe.”
The SmartLabs provide students with curriculum, resources, kits, robots and software to use in their STEM-based learning, according to Highfield, a sixth-year instructor at the school. He said McAuliffe was one of the first schools in District 6 to get SmartLabs.
Both Highfield and Plantt, going on his third year at McAuliffe, had other plans for their career paths after college but found their perfect fit in District 6.
“For me specifically, my position is just like a perfect match for what I love about education and how I like to do education,” Plantt said.
Highfield and Plantt have since formed a great partnership and teamed up to build internal pathways of robotics and computer science to create a streamlined progression from elementary to middle school, Highfield said.
Plantt added SmartLabs provide an “authentic exploration-based learning” where he gets to watch his students get creative.
The two educators received recognition from the Success Foundation not only for their work with students but also for showcasing SmartLabs’ unique learning opportunities to potential donors, who helped further incorporate SmartLabs across the district, according to Highfield.
The Success Foundation’s SmartLab Project will have 21 SmartLabs across the district once it’s complete, according to Hill. The foundation installed three SmartLabs in 2023 and has plans to install the last four in 2024, Hill said.
Community support has made the project possible, Hill said, totaling $4.2 million in community contributions to install SmartLabs.
S. Christa McAuliffe STEM Academy gained a third win at the Success in 6 Awards when Jeff Petersen, a ninth-year principal at the school, earned the Leader Among Leaders recognition.
Petersen planned to become a pediatrician after high school but decided he didn’t want to attend the extra years of schooling. With a love for kids, he switched his major to education, and now, he plans to go to school for the rest of his life, he joked.
When he won the leadership award among other deserving leaders, he thought any of the others nominated for the same category could have taken home the award.
“I just show up every day and just do my job,” Petersen said. “I don’t think I do anything special. That’s just who I am and what I do.”
Petersen said his work family at McAuliffe makes the job worthwhile because he loves to solve problems as a team, create different opportunities for children and celebrate together.
Celebrations are more important now than ever since, in more recent times, public education has received a negative portrayal in the media, he said. Educators deserve to feel validated and appreciated because they show up every day to help students grow and develop — one of Petersen’s favorite parts of the job.
“We don’t do it for the money,” Petersen said. “We don’t do it for the recognition.”
One way Petersen goes above and beyond is his work extends past school doors and into the community, to ensure he and his wife are doing their part in helping their community grow.
“I think the best way to do that is through the kids so they see how they fit in in a community and how they can be a positive impact and continue to help our community grow too,” Petersen said.
The additional outstanding winners of the Succes in 6 include:
- Rookie of the Year: Emily Abbott, a sixth-grade math teacher at Prairie Heights Middle School;
- Heart and Soul Award: Marcelo Meza, a parent and family advocate at Dos Rios Elementary School; and Charolette Hutchison, a speech-language pathologist at Maplewood Elementary;
- Elementary School Educator of the Year: Sara Mireles, a culturally and linguistically diverse teacher at Maplewood Elementary;
- High School Educator of the Year: Caitlyn O’Brien, an English teacher at Jefferson High School.
“We have the best teachers in the whole wide world,” Morford said. “I just am so grateful to be in this district.”
