Ms.McHale has won the Teacher of the Year Award for the 2024-2025 school year.
Ms. McHale explained that she felt ‘overwhelmed and humbled’ by winning teacher of the year. She said, “I was overwhelmed and very humbled because it’s such an honor to be thought of and touched because my colleagues think I’m doing okay so they voted me in. I was very surprised and very touched, but it was also overwhelming because it was in the auditorium.”
She would like to say a big thanks to, “all of my colleagues.” She followed up by saying, “I love the school I teach in, I love the people I work with. So it’s very nice we take time to recognize each other as professionals, as individuals.”
Her inspiration to be a teacher is that she always “just enjoyed school.” She also said, “When I was little we used to play school and I would make my sister have homework and listen to me. I always loved to read and I have two aunts who were teachers. so my godmother also inspired me because she was a teacher…So I guess it’s in our blood.”
Things she did to reach this position, “Well I started out teaching 5th grade in a Catholic school and I think that if I didn’t teach 5th grade I would never be prepared or wanted to teach middle school because when I first started out I had the little ones, I had second graders and I never wanted to teach anything above third grade. But then when you gotta get a job I taught 5th grade and I think it really prepared me to teach middle school. I just love this age group because we all are developing and I see how you change from 6th grade to 8th grade.”
Ms.McHale has a lot of hobbies and interests. She said, “I do like to read. I tend to look for books that are young adults so I can inspire other students to read. This summer me and my friend formed a book club so we could read books not only for the students but for our enjoyment as well.” She is “currently working on” reading Wicked the book.
If she could read any book for the first time again she said, “I always liked Tuck Everlasting, I like that book and I like that book especially because when I first started here and I was reading the book with them I also read it for the first time with the students. So I would be in the situation where I didn’t know the ending, so we got to experience it together.”
Ms.McHale is a 6th-grade teacher but she used to teach science and she said, “It broke up my day. Like one language arts class, we had periods at the time so I had mostly 5 science classes. So thats always fun because you’re not always, the teacher not always on point because you give them labs to do and see how they can collaborate and interact.”
Her favorite superhero is the Hulk because “I like the fact that he changes into this big gigantic thing, like trying to control your emotions and I feel like thats what happens inside us, but you don’t get to physically do it.”
If she could have any superpower she said, “The superpower to be invisible…. Like if you’re there and you’re feeling overwhelmed, you’re anxious you could just be invisible for a minute and get yourself back into like a good mood.” She also said that she would like the superpower of teleportation because “I hate driving. So if I could just be like, ‘alright I gotta go to work’ and I could just teleport there, I would do that too.”
8th grader Francessca Belocura was interviewed about her feelings on Ms.McHale winning Teacher of the Year.
She said having Ms.Mchale as a teacher was a great experience and “She is a really good teacher her lessons were really simple, she was really nice”
Her favorite memory from the class “was reading Al Capone Does My Shirts and making friends.”
She would go back to Ms. McHale’s class because “it was a great class and I really enjoyed all the memories I made there.”
The next student interviewed was 8th grader Maitee Benjamin.
She said, “Having Ms.McHale was so much fun. I enjoyed her class. I learned a lot and she was always encouraging to her students.”
Her favorite memory from the class “was meeting Francesca and now she’s my best friend.”
She would like to go back to the class “because I would enjoy it more because she’s a great teacher and I would love to have her again.”
Congratulations Ms.McHale!
