CPS teacher wins $10K, gives it back

What would you do with an extra $10,000? Take a nice vacation? Get rid of some debt? Pay off your Enquirer online subscription for the next 83-plus years?

Cincinnati Public Schools teacher Krista Taylor went another route: She gave it back.

Taylor, a Gamble Montessori School junior high intervention specialist, is the 2015 Dr. Lawrence C. Hawkins Educator of the Year – a title that comes with a plaque and a $10,000 check. The plaque is sitting in Taylor's classroom, "in need of a nail," she said. The money is going to the Gamble Foundation, where it will be used to subsidize educational field experiences for students who couldn't otherwise afford them.

"The money doesn't belong to me. It never belonged to me," Taylor said. "I feel very strange that I would be singled out to receive such an incredible gift.

"I knew at the time that the only option I had was to return the money to my school. That was the greatest blessing: I will never in my life have another opportunity to donate $10,000."

Western & Southern Financial Group launched its educator of the year award in 2007 to reward excellence among CPS educators. There is one winner each year. Taylor was chosen for her dedication to creating a love for learning and her commitment to empowering her students to achieve, according to a release.

Dr. Hawkins. the award's namesake, was a member of the Tuskegee Airmen, a well-respected Cincinnati educator and a former Western & Southern board member. He died in 2009.

Taylor has been a CPS employee for 10 years and a Gamble teacher the past five. The Pleasant Ridge resident was nominated for the award this past year, and she knew ahead of the ceremony this year that she was a finalist, she said. She never imagined she would win, though.

"There's a big drumroll reveal in the moment," she said. "The first thing I thought was, 'Well, who's that?'"

After the ceremony, Taylor wrote an email to her colleagues, thanking them for the nomination and sharing the credit:

Dear Gamble Staff,

This has been an unbelievable and overwhelming week for me. So many of you have offered congratulations and words of support, and invariably, I have found myself dumbstruck in response. I am rarely at a loss for words, so this experience has been a unique one. I haven't known what to say or how to say it, but there are things that I really want you to know.

I don't believe that there can be such a thing as an "Educator of the Year" in any forum, but most especially at Gamble. I have been saying from my very first year in the building that I have never worked with a more dedicated, engaged, and heart-filled staff, and this statement is even more true today than it was then. I know that I don't stand alone, and that I never have. I know that every interaction that occurs within our building is just one small thread in the much bigger web that we weave together to support all of our students.

It is for this reason that I know, with utter certainty, that the (very large) cash prize never belonged to me. Rather, it belonged to all of us collectively. I never had any question about what should be done with it. Each of us gives all that we have to supporting our students every day. This money is simply a reflection of that, and, as such, it, too, belongs in the service of our students.

Once all the paperwork is complete, the check will be written to the Gamble Foundation. I have not yet determined exactly how I want the money to be used -- beyond assisting students with paying for field experience costs -- but I am working on developing specific parameters and procedures for its use.

I truly believe that the work we do at Gamble is life-changing (and, perhaps sometimes, life-saving) for our students. There is a lot of blood, sweat, and tears that go into this profession. There is a lot of frustration, anxiety, and disappointment as well, and sometimes the work may seem futile. But, beneath all of this, I know that fundamentally, each of us believes that whether or not we ever get to reap the fruits of our labor, we have planted seeds that make a profound difference to the children with whom we work.

So, I am not the "Educator of the Year." We are collectively Educators of Every Year -- on both the spectacular days and the rotten ones, because all we can do is to give all that we have, and that has to be enough. My hope is that every time you have the remarkable experience of observing a student experiencing something new or stepping outside of his/her comfort zone on a field experience, you will remember your role in helping that moment to occur. And that every time a student gets to do that because of the use of this money, that that was also a direct result of the tremendous work you do each and every day.

Much love,

Krista