2025 PTEF Champion Teacher

They are educators who go above and beyond each day to inspire, support, and empower our students. Congratulations to Michelle Strong, our 2025 Champion Teacher! The nomination letter below highlights how Ms. Strong inspires, supports, and empowers her students. 

Please accept this letter as a nomination for Ms. Michelle Strong of Fishback Creek Public Academy for the Pike Township Educational Foundation Champion Teacher Award. I am writing this letter on behalf of our son, Leo, a 2024-2025 first grade student of Ms. Strong’s.

Prior to entering first grade, like all parents, we try to get the scoop on teachers. In speaking to neighbors and friends, I heard adjectives to describe Ms. Strong such as “passionate,” “caring,” and “she will challenge the students and hold them accountable.” Allow me to elaborate on how Ms. Strong exemplifies these words and more.

One such example takes us to the start of the school year in October 2024. Ms. Strong contacted us and indicated that Leo didn’t seem to be listening very well to her instructions and she did not think that was typical of his behavior. Coincidentally, his Loving Care facilitator expressed similar feelings within a week of this observation. This led us to explore if this was a behavior issue or something more. Through the support of Ms. Strong, we requested an early hearing evaluation through the school district. Leo had failed his school hearing test. At this point, we suspected a hearing concern may be leading to him not listening in school and we knew we had to take swift action to get this addressed. While we waited to see audiology, we kept in close communication with Ms. Strong, the school leadership, and the speech teacher. Ms. Strong told us she would adapt her teaching and communication style to over-compensate for what we believed to be hearing impairment by speaking louder, clearer, minimizing ambient noises in the classroom, and making sure Leo can see her mouth when she was speaking. I was blown away by the adaptability shown, knowing how difficult this must have been for her to juggle this one little issue among all the other students’ needs. This was the first sign of a really caring educator.

We later followed up with audiology where Leo failed the entire battery of hearing tests and we were immediately referred to an ears/nose/throat (ENT) doctor. The wait for this was many months but eventually we learned that Leo needed to have tubes placed in both ears and have his tonsils removed – a rather common set of procedures for kids. He went on to have the procedures and Ms. Strong was so caring and checked in during his time away from the classroom. She sent us some homework that Leo can do to stay connected to his schoolwork and we never felt like we were falling behind. His hearing is now near perfect and instead of speaking to him in a loud, assertive tone, he can hear a pin drop!

An example of Ms. Strong’s passion shined through during February 2025 with Black History Month. Every single day of February, Leo came home excited to teach us about some of the black heroes that Ms. Strong taught him. Everything from “Today I learned about Michael Jordan – he was one of the greatest basketball players of all time. I want to be great at sports like him” to “Daddy, can you believe people were mean to Rosa Parks and wanted her to sit at the back of the bus just because she was black?” The stories told through the lens of a seven-year-old were heart-warming, inspiring, and at times made me tear up at how much he was learning about civility and respect, even during some rather turbulent times. It’s not just the words spoken that demonstrate Ms. Strong’s passion but also the actions. Leo came home one Friday in April and told us “We will have e-learning on Monday so Ms. Strong can go fight for keeping money and fish tickets within our school. There are some people who want to try to take that away from us and she’s going to tell them that’s a bad idea.” Again, we were moved not only by Ms. Strong fighting the good fight at the State House, but also the way in which she explained to the students what was happening and why it’s important to use your voice to drive change – it was motivating and inspiring to the young children which are pillars of the Champion Award.

As I write this letter, I am reminded of what Leo told me this afternoon when I picked him up from school. “Today we learned about Earth Day. Ms. Strong made us pick up trash and clean up our playground because we only have one Earth, we can’t buy a new one and we have to take care of it.” This is a testament to what parent friends told me earlier in the year that Ms. Strong challenges the students and holds them accountable. Most any teacher can teach about Earth Day inside the classroom through some videos but Ms. Strong takes it to the next level by providing experiential learning that resonates with the children. This was so much the case that later that evening I took Leo and his 4-year-old little sister on a bike ride around the neighborhood. Leo spotted some trash and picked it up and told his little sister all about Earth Day and how little acts of kindness and caring for the planet can make a big difference. As a parent, I was just blown away. It was through both the didactic teaching of Ms. Strong coupled with the experiential learning through doing that enabled Leo to be able to teach his little sister about an important topic.

I hope you will consider this nomination for Ms. Strong for the Champion Teacher Award. If nothing else, we want her to know that undoubtedly she has made a tremendous impact on Leo, our family, and we cannot thank her enough for being such a positive role model to our son. He comes home every single day excited to tell us what he learned from Ms. Strong and with education being such an important pillar in our household, it really means a lot to have a partner like Ms. Strong walk this journey with us as parents. Her efforts are truly appreciated and we hope she will be recognized for going above and beyond to shape the young minds of the future.