The road to good citizenship begins at home, no doubt about that. But inspiration and encouragement from great teachers certainly helps youngsters keep their eyes focused on Good Citizenship Road.
Yesterday was Civic Education Day on the Capitol Campus, celebrating this important subject and the men and women who make it happen. One of this year’s honorees is Kelly Clark, a Wedgwood Elementary School (Seattle) fourth-grade teacher who was nominated by the 46th Legislative District’s delegation of state Reps. Gerry Pollet and Jessyn Farrell, and state Sen. David Frockt.
“Every legislative session, Kelly works very hard in preparing her Wedgwood fourth-graders to come to Olympia,” Pollet noted. “They are invariably our most-knowledgeable school visitors, asking us well-informed questions about the legislative process. Clearly, her class prepares the students to be active citizens.”
“Kelly is everything a teacher should be,” Farrell said. “She’s exactly what’s great in education. And she’s exactly why teaching is so very important in getting everyone on board the civics train.”
“Civics Education is an important part of our Social Studies Curriculum,” Clark emphasized. “Government is for the people, and students need to know they are a part of it. They, too, have a voice as learned by Wedgwood students when they proposed a bill that became a law naming the Olympic Marmot the Official Endemic Mammal for the State of Washington.”
Hundreds of Wedgwood fourth-graders in her 17 years of teaching have benefited from
Clark’s passion for helping students understand how state government works. Every fall she organizes a fundraiser in which students earn money to pay for charter buses for an Olympia trip to see the Legislature in action. She teaches this state-government unit to all three of Wedgwood’s fourth-grade classes. This year, Clark’s Wedgwood contingent will be visiting the state capital on Thursday, March 6.
Also winning a Civic Educator of the Year Award this year is Malia Renner-Singer, a Wenatchee High School teacher. The Legislature’s own Judi Best, who for almost 10 years has been the Civic Education and Intern Coordinator for the state Senate, received a Life Time Achievement Award. Teachers from schools and communities all over the Evergreen State — including Kittitas, Battle Ground, Spokane, and Shelton — were commemorated as finalists in the 2014 Civic Educator of the Year Award program.