Jordan Education Foundation awards two Riverton teachers as Outstanding Educator of the Year

By Morgan Olsen | m.olsen@mycityjournals.com

Eachyear, the Jordan Education Foundation selects several teachers they feel have shown qualities of what it means to be an exceptional educator. This year, there were 15 teachers selected from the district, and two of those were Riverton-based teachers Arnica Christensen of Riverton Elementary, and Joanna Larson of Kauri Sue Hamilton School.

“Every year the foundation asks every principal to open up nominations for an Outstanding Educator of the Year for their school,” Executive Director of the Jordan Education Foundation, Mike Haynes, said. “One recipient is selected from each school to be the school’s Outstanding Educator of the Year and that recipient gets $500 and a crystal award. We then have a committee that reads through every single nomination and scores them against a rubric. Those teachers with the highest scores are selected to be the district-level award recipients. This year we had 15 district-level winners, and they each got a check for $1,000 and a nice crystal award.”

Once recipients have been selected, members of the board go around to the schools and surprise the educators with the news.

“Once those winners are decided we work with the Superintendent and our board notifies the principal of the dates we’ll be coming to their school,” Haynes said. “The principal creates a secret party by reaching out to coworkers, families and students, and we all barge into their classroom with balloons, cheers and clapping. Every teacher this year was surprised. It was a great experience.”

One Riverton recipient, Arnica Christensen, teaches special education at Riverton Elementary.

“She is solution-oriented and works with parents and her team to find solutions so kids can be successful,” Christensen’s principal Joel Pullan said. “She thinks outside the box of what most teachers would think. In doing that she’s able to meet the needs of all stakeholders—the parents, the team, and most importantly, the kids.”

Christensen has been teaching at Riverton Elementary for six years, and Pullan said she has done many things through the years that warrant her receiving this award.

“Laura Smith came to me over a year ago and said ‘we need to recognize Arnica for the great things that she’s doing,’” Pullan said. “That process was a year in the making. We included data relative in the classroom, and we included anecdotal information from colleagues on her team and input from parents who have had their kids work with her over the years. It literally was a year-long process of gathering information to accurately and effectively portray what a phenomenal teacher she is. It was a collaborative effort led by Laura Smith.”

Laura Smith is a colleague of Christensen’s and enjoys working with her in the special education department.

“I like that Arnica doesn’t take no for an answer in the best way possible,” Smith said. “She’s an advocate on our team for what needs to be done for students, teachers and assistants. She is everyone’s advocate in the special ed department. She thinks about everyone else and is extremely selfless when a problem arises.”

Christensen is passionate about teaching and her passion shows in the love she has for her students.

“Arnica is 100 percent committed to children and their success,” Pullan said. “That’s why she won the award.”

Christensen is committed to doing all she can to help her students succeed.

“My favorite part of teaching is definitely the kids,” Christensen said. “I love being around my students and I love watching them progress. In my class, the progression can be very slow. We’ll spend an entire year working on writing their first name and be thrilled if they can end up writing one letter.

It’s so rewarding to see their progress, even if it’s just a little bit at times.”

Christensen is honored to receive this award and was surprised to hear that she was a chosen recipient.

“I honestly was shocked to get this award. It’s never really been on my radar, and it’s obviously not why I do what I do, but it is nice to be acknowledged. It’s flattering and definitely surprising. There are so many amazing teachers I’m surrounded with every day, so I feel honored to be chosen.”

The second Riverton recipient, Joanna Larson, is a teacher at Kauri Sue Hamilton School in Riverton and is well-loved by her colleagues, students and students’ parents alike.

“Joanna has an inner drive to learn more and teach better,” Principal Courtney Titus said. “She has a love for each and every student.”

Larson faces challenges each day in her position and is adaptable to accommodate those challenges. She is passionate and motivated to help the students in each of their unique situations.

“Joanna knows all about flexibility,” Titus said. “She can come into the school with the best plan, but knows she has to meet the students where they are each day they come off the bus. She accepts and works around whatever interruptions occur throughout the day. At Kauri Sue there are days that can feel chaotic, but adapting to that and changing schedules or activities when needed has to happen. Joanna does this well. Classrooms can be unpredictable. Joanna spends her days creating schedules around the individual student’s needs, not on what is easiest for her.”

Larson’s ability to face challenges with patience and grace is something that sets her apart.

“Every day is different and every day Joanna is presented with new challenges,” Titus said. “She is always down for a change of plans and is a very patient person. Working with students who have diverse physical, emotional, academic, behavioral and mental challenges requires her to have patience for each child’s abilities. Joanna has a calm and encouraging nature which helps diffuse the frequent frustrations that come with mastering ordinary simple tasks.”

Larson’s passion for teaching keeps her going when things may feel chaotic or overwhelming.

“I was very surprised to receive this award,” Larson said. “It shows that people see the hard work that we put in in the classroom and that we do make a difference even though sometimes the days are hard. It’s awesome to have support.” l

TheOquirrh Hills Middle School robotics teams have been working hard this school year building robots and competing in qualifying rounds in order to compete in the state robotics competition. During a qualifying competition in March, both teams officially qualified to compete in the state competition that took place at Southern Utah University.

“Competing in the qualifiers and making it to the state competition was a huge accomplishment,” said one student, Jonathan. “Especially since we are a middle school team and the only team in the district.”

The teams are coached by Pinyi Yao, who is currently in his second year as their head coach. The teams, named the OHMS Baconators and the OHMS Velocity Raptors, respectively, have been preparing for the competitions since this year’s theme was announced in September 2022.

“Typically the competition is announced at the end of September for the new school year,” Yao said. “The qualifiers happen in December, February and March. We qualified at the March competition, which was one week before the state championship.”

Preparing for the qualifying rounds and state competitions is time-consuming and requires students to work together to reach the goal outlined in competition rules.

“This year’s competition was called Power Play Energize,” said ninth grader and team captain Liam. “The goal was to place a cone on poles of varying heights using different methods. We all come up with different ways to do that and are judged on how well our robots perform that task at competition. For example, one of our teams used the claw method to complete the task.”

The two OHMS robotics teams finished ninth and 22nd out of 36 teams in the state competition, respectively. Their success at the competition came with challenges that taught the students lessons they say they will use to improve their robots for future competitions.

“Our team had a lot of challenges,” said ninth grader and team captain Ryder. “This is our first time we’ve tried object recognition and going that deep was hard. AI is not as easy as it sounds, but it has been our biggest accomplishment this year. In past years we never focused on self-driving or anything like that. This year we decided that, since the competition revolves around self-driving, we would implement that. Deciding to implement that in the competition was a huge milestone. I think next year we’ll use that experience to make even better robots.”

Another challenge the team faced is the lack of funding. Many other teams in the state have a bigger budget to supply materials and entry fees, but the OHMS team has struggled to receive the funding needed to have those supplies paid for, making their success at the

By Morgan Olsen | m.olsen@mycityjournals.com

state competition even more impressive.

“We don’t have funding,” said team member Kendrick. “Other teams buy their own parts, but we made our own parts for half the cost and still had the same performance. We had challenges figuring out how to do that, but we learned a lot in the process.”

The team also received help from parents and community members who were willing to donate their time to help students learn the skills they needed to do well in the competition.

“Mr. Whiteley, one of our student’s parents, is a software engineer and knows a lot about coding,” Yao said. “He has helped us learn lots of skills relating to robotics.”

The process of designing, crafting and competing has taught the robotics students lessons they can apply outside robotics, as well.

“This is my first year on the team and so what I learned was that participation and communication is key to getting things done,” team member Ethan said. “If you just sit in the back and not do anything it doesn’t work out too well.”

Other students said they learned the importance of time management and executing a plan effectively.

“With limited time we have to manage our expectations and use our time effectively,” team captain Liam said. “Having different parts, we have to use our time wisely. Using our time effectively is something important to learn.”

Participating in robotics has taught other students the importance of being involved and doing their part to get the most out of the experience.

“I learned about participating on a team more,” team member Justin said. “I didn’t really participate much when I was in seventh grade, but once I started participating it was really fun working together.”

Working as a team was another benefit students on the robotics team have been grateful for this year.

“We really had to learn how to work as a team,” team member Kendrick said. “If our team was divided, our robot would not work very well - we wouldn’t know what to do. But once you work together and have experiences together, you are much more successful.”

Yao has enjoyed watching his team flourish this school year and loves to see them become even better students, team members and leaders through robotics.

“My favorite part of coaching these kids is seeing them learn,” Yao said. “I have some students that are growing to be leaders and it’s especially awesome to see how they grow in this middle school age. It’s fun to see them grow in life as well as in robotics. I’m really proud of them for all the hard work they’ve put in this year.” l