PelhamToday received the following letter regarding a local teacher:
At the Dec. 5 DSBN Board meeting, teacher Kelly Morgan-Rauh (Winger School) received the Director’s Award for extraordinary contributions to teaching. Raised in Pelham, Kelly attended E. W. Farr and Pelham Centre elementary and E. L. Crossley secondary schools. She then headed to Lakehead University where, following in her mother, Jackie Morgan’s footsteps, she completed her degree and returned home and began her teaching career.
Over her 32 years with the DSBN, she has worked passionately to bring out the best in her students and to help them reach their potential. Always willing to try new instructional practices, Kelly has modelled to her students what it means to be a lifelong learner.
Kelly’s love of music is transferred to her students. She has led numerous school concerts and her students have had the opportunity to explore and appreciate percussion instruments, the ukulele and the Orff, as well as vocal music.
Last year, Kelly read the book entitled “More Than Peach” to her Grade 3/4 class. The ensuing discussion centred around how people have different skin colours, but their Crayola crayons did not have enough colours to represent everyone’s skin tones.
After purchasing the “Colours of the World” crayons and using them in their class, Kelly’s students decided that every DSBN student should be able to draw pictures of themselves in their own skin colour. With her guidance, Kelly’s students became crayon activists. They wrote to the of Director of Education, Mr. Hoshizaki, stating their reasoning and asked if he would (which he did) purchase a box of these crayons for every DSBN school so that every student could feel included. Kelly helped her students learn that you are never too young to create change in this world and that by working together, big things can happen.
The District School Board of Niagara is very fortunate to have such a forward thinking and dedicated teacher guiding our students on their educational pathway. For everything that she has done as a teacher, Kelly certainly deserved the Director’s Recognition for Extraordinary Contributions Award.
Nancy Beamer, DSBN Trustee
Fenwick
