Last Week's Program

Last week's program was Katy Smith of Winona, who was named Minnesota Teacher of the Year in 2011.  It was the first time the award has been bestowed on a teacher who specializes in Early Childhood Family Education. She has taught in the Winona school district since 1993. Early Childhood Family Education is based on the idea that the family provides a child's first and most significant learning environment and parents are a child's first and most important teachers. Parents and children from infancy to pre-kindergarten together attend classes together.

Smith received her degree in social work from Winona State University and a master's in education from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. She started as a chemical dependency counselor, but knew what she wanted to do as a career when she attended Early Childhood Family Education with her first child. She finds it rewarding to start building strong families rather than trying to repair damaged families after the fact.

Easily one of our most dynamic speakers, Smith covered topics ranging from her excitement at meeting President Obama to the importance of teaching self regulation. She recalls her pride in helping change the Minnesota law that required teachers who were deployed to pay their own subs when they returned. Under the old law, the pay for deployed teachers making less in the military than at teaching was available to them less the cost of hiring a substitute teacher. That is no longer the case thanks in part to Katy Smith.

Katy also wrote about her visit to Rotary on her blog minnesotateacheroftheyear.blogspot.com.



Notice Katy is right next to President Obama, so much so that she was even stroking his arm!