Kyle Vierra, sixth-grade teacher at Park School, and Lori Tennis, Great Bend Middle School math teacher, have been nominated by their principals for the Horizon Award, a state award for outstanding new teachers. The program recognizes exemplary first-year teachers who perform in a way that distinguishes them as outstanding.
“Kyle is driven to excellence and willing to do the extras for his students and Park School,” said Principal Phil Heeke.
Among Vierra’s accomplishments during his first year of teaching, Heeke noted, he organized a science fair for grades 4-6, and he organized intramural lunch sports events for grades 5-6 basketball, kickball and soccer with tournaments. Vierra also created sixth-grade character development and team building activities, combined math and science hands-on experiments, and created a classroom economy with real-life applications for classroom management.
“The most important thing is that Lori Tennis has a heart for kids and works at helping each individual student to be successful in math class,” said GBMS Principal David Reiser. “The drive she exhibits as an excellent teacher will serve her well as she continues to hone her professional teaching practice.”
Reiser said Tennis demonstrates effective teaching competencies by having good classroom management. In addition, she differentiates instruction for students based upon how they are performing in class and uses teaming concepts to aid instruction as well as other cooperative learning structures.
“She utilizes various teaching strategies to meet the needs of the individual students,” Reiser said. “She does a great job of working to establish relationships with the students by recognizing their birthdays and working at getting to know her students.