Excellent Educators is a WAVY-TV 10 initiative to celebrate local teachers who have gone above and beyond for their students and communities during the last academic year. These Excellent Educators were nominated by their school divisions. Congratulations to these educators for all of their hard work and accomplishments!
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WAVY) — As we take time to celebrate the excellent educators in our area, we bring you to Denbigh High School in Newport News. World History and AP Human Geography teacher Michael Sage is the 2023-2024 High School Teacher of the Year for the school district.
This is his eighth year in the classroom, making it through the COVID era. Sage said for the past few years, he focused on making sure his class is caught up on what they missed during the pandemic.
With many of his students getting their news from social media, Sage works to answer questions about current events as they relate to his lessons. But one thing he focuses on heavily is staying personable. This goes into his biggest piece of advice for fellow teachers — stay consistent, even on the tough days.
“Every day, I try to be like the same guy,” Sage said. “So they get the same guy, happy, excited to see them. Whenever I can do something like that and see them succeed, it makes it all worthwhile.”
Sage is also the girls soccer coach for the school. He previously coached cross country, track and girls tennis. He also started the e-sports program at Denbigh High School.
