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 coronavirus pandemic. These Excellent Educators were nominated by their school divisions. Congratulations to these educators for all of their hard work and accomplishments!
Name: Crystal Hawks
Division: Gates County Public Schools
Position: English teacher at Gates County High School
What the school division said about this Excellent Educator: Crystal Hawks has completely revamped her English two and journalism classes to take advantage of the newest technology available to teachers. Her online courses are completely interactive while focusing on the fundamental skills that are needed for students to succeed in the courses.
Love a good mystery? Students who do can tackle pictures that are revealed as they provide the correct answers to questions. Like creating virtual art scenes? Students can enjoy a brain break that Hawks has designed for them at the end of their weekly writes journal. Falling behind on assignments? Students should expect a weekend email from Hawks to remind them of work that needs to be submitted.
Hawks has balanced the rigors of teaching and attending graduate school for library science and instructional technology during the pandemic. As part of her graduate school work, Hawks designed and shared interactive pages and assignments for other departments at Gates County High School.
Due to the need to limit physical contact with resources, Hawks has reached out to various authors to request that she be allowed to provide digital copies of their works to students. Hawks modeled for our students the need to observe copyright laws when using media.
Hawks also worked to keep traditions alive at GCHS during the coronavirus pandemic. As the co-chair of the Spirit Committee, she helped organize a virtual spirit week in the fall and a face-to-face spirit week for homecoming in March, which culminated with the crowning of our first-ever masked homecoming queen.
