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!
Name: Michael Kinkead
Division: Hertford County Public Schools
Position: Social studies teacher at Early College High School
What the school division said about this Excellent Educator: Michael Kinkead is a graduate of Marshall University. For the past 12 years, he has taught social studies. Most of those years, he has been the sole social studies teacher responsible for teaching all grade levels and five social studies classes. This means he has multiple class preps that he has to prepare for each semester. He has never complained about his course load, even when it has been changed last minute to adjust for student needs.
In addition to teaching social studies, he coaches the boys’ and girls’ varsity soccer teams. He is co-sponsor of the Student Government Association and director of the Hertford County Early College community service program. Being the director of the community service program means that Kinkead oversees all community service activities that students participate in, as well as keeps track of all of the community service hours that are submitted. Students are required to complete a minimum of 40 hours of community service before they graduate.
Kinkead is well liked among his colleagues and students. You can tell from his interactions with students that he values student opinion. He regularly incorporates student opinion and choice in his classroom instruction, creating a safe space for students to feel valued and heard.
Kinkead goes above and beyond the call of duty to help students, which in this past year has included working with students during his planning period to help provide a space for them to form study groups and for him to monitor students’ college work. Due to the environment Kinkead creates in his classroom, he is able to help support and encourage students. This is why he has been successful in helping ECHS administration get the Hertford360 Social and Emotional Learning Program off the ground and running this school year.
This year, Kinkead has helped in ensuring that bus needs are met in order to alleviate some of the administrative teams’ duties. When an unknown vacancy came about at the beginning of the year, Kinkead helped out during his down period until we were able to fill the position, in which he also sat on the interview committee to help select a candidate.
Every day, Kinkead uses his lunch time to talk and walk with students in the courtyard. You will often see a group of students getting their steps in with Kinkead as they talk about all different local and world events. He truly has the “all in” approach to teaching and the environment we should create for students.
