Leis and three other teachers will receive the Excellence in Teaching award on March 21. The 33rd awards program is sponsored by the Springfield Rotary Club, Ohio Edison, The Springfield Foundation and the Greater Springfield Partnership.
Each recipient will be introduced and will give a short presentation on what teaching has meant to them and the importance of being a teacher. Recipients will also receive a $1,000 check, a recognition plaque, an etched paperweight, and proclamations from the Ohio House of Representatives and the Ohio Senate.
Leis always saw her parents, Pam and Stephen Ark, “work, plan, grade, discuss and feel their jobs.”
“In all honesty, my father’s classroom was likely one of the reasons I began considering education as a career. It smelled of time-honored books, chalk and knowledge,” she said. “Another likely catalyst for my path to education was my experience as a student in my mom’s classroom. As a middle schooler, I had the privilege of being a student of my mother’s.”
Teaching means each day Leis can contribute something to her community. She said being a teacher is important because putting time and effort into raising children matters, and that it’s more than distributing course content, but also helping students achieve their goals.
“It means that I have the honor of opening - or broadening - a world of reading and writing and expression for my students. It means that my daughters Ava and Cora can look at their mother and see that she’s working hard to make a positive impact in the lives of others,” Leis said.
Her favorite part of teaching is connecting. That’s when she “feels like she is hitting her stride.” After the first few weeks of figuring each other out, the laughter and easy “back and forth” become routine, which Leis said is “wonderful components of a strong learning environment.”
Leis said teaching during COVID-19 forced her out of her comfort zone and was difficult and exhausting, but caused change that made her a better teacher and stronger leader. She said sometimes she had to respect that her students didn’t need English lessons.
“Their worlds were falling apart. They needed me to see them, hear them, and accept them without question or condition. They needed to laugh in my classroom and connect with me and with each other. They needed something that felt more like what normal used to feel like,” she said.
Leis has taught seventh- and eighth-grade English Language Arts at Clark-Shawnee and also several sections of freshman English at Bowling Green while she was earning her master’s degree. She chose to teach English because words matter, stories matter and voices are powerful.
“Writing can incite change, heal wounds, generate kindness, and push society beyond its comfort zone and into a space that allows for progress,” she said.
“My job is to help students recognize that their words might just be everything. If you know what you’re doing — if you‘ve had the right teacher and found your own voice — words hold power. What could be more rewarding than teaching that?,” she added.
Leis said this award means it’s the community’s way of showing they see and appreciate educators, and that this award is “especially meaningful” to her.
“Both of my parents are former Excellence in Teaching award recipients. I imagine that few recipients can claim both parents as fellow award winners. The three of us have taught generations of students, and it is an honor to contribute to Clark County in this way,” she said.
2022 Excellence in Teaching Award
This is the first story in a four-part series by the Springfield News-Sun on the teachers in Clark County receiving the 2022 Excellence in Teaching Award.
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