In honor of Teacher Appreciation Month, we’re celebrating a school 2025 Teacher of the Year each day! Special Education teacher Kathryn Smerker, a 22-year educator, is the Teacher of the Year for Ball Ground Elementary School STEM Academy.
“Being a student diagnosed with autism is not an experience I wish upon anyone. You are easily judged simply for being different. But Mrs. Smerker made being different my super power,” a former student shared. “She understood the pace of learning is different for everyone, but she adapted. Elementary school was an ocean, and I didn’t know how to swim. She reached out her hand and told me ‘to keep swimming.’ This letter is devoted to the award for Teacher Of The Year, but to me she was the Teacher Of My Life.”…