Robin August was checking out of a shoe store last month when she recognized a former student she taught 17 years ago at Holabird Elementary School in Baltimore City.
“Her first words were ?You?re Ms. August,? and I knew her name,” August said, “With every student I?ve ever run into … there is something positive that came out of our relationship in the year we spent together.” Building relationships is paramount for August, 39, a sixth-grade math teacher at Deep Creek Middle School in Essex who was chosen from 42 nominees as the Baltimore County Teacher of the Year.
“The only way to connect to a student is to show them who I am and relate to them on a personal level,” August said.
August was honored in a ceremony Wednesday at the school system?s Greenwood campus in Towson. She was given a $1,000 check toward the purchase of a laptop and the use of a Toyota Prius for the year. Five finalists also were honored at the ceremony.
“Robin has been a model not only to her students, but to all of us,” said Joe Hairston, superintendent of Baltimore County Public Schools.
August taught elementary school in Baltimore City for 10 years before moving to Deep Creek Middle, where she teaches algebraic foundations and a gifted and talented math course.
“She?s just a natural in the classroom ? even with the most difficult students,” Deep Creek Middle Principal Anissa Brown Dennis said.
After August was nominated, she answered essay questions and went on rounds of interviews with a selection committee made up of students, teachers and administrators. She will represent the county in a statewide competition for Teacher of the Year. August said she is still shocked, but knows what her former students would say about the honor.
“I think they would say I?m tough, that I challenge them and hold them accountable,” she said. “At times they may not like me because of that, but I know all of them would say I?ve taught them math.”
