Erin Dillard was recently awarded with the Teacher of the Year award for Memorial High School.
And while this award is a huge deal on its own, it’s even more special this year for Dillard is the first ever Teacher of the Year for Memorial.
Dillard was excited to have received the award and was filled with pride and honor.
“Being teacher of the year is really exciting and rewarding. It’s a humbling experience because I don’t necessarily feel like I’m the world’s best teacher, but I’m real,” Dillard said. “And so I feel grateful and a whole lot of pride, and just honored that my peers at Memorial would select me as the Teacher of the Year.”
Dillard knows she isn’t the perfect teacher, but she tries hard every day to make school enjoyable and relate with her students.
“When I mentioned that to the counselors, they told me, ‘But you’re not the perfect teacher. You are chosen by your peers as someone who works hard and helps our campus and the staff and the students and who inspires other people and you’re real in everything that you do,’ so that helped it click a little bit for me,” Rivas said.
Dillard feels like she belongs in the profession, having been teaching for about 20 years. A majority of her family is also in teaching. Her husband Ross is a science teacher and football/track coach at Memorial.
“My parents were both teachers, so they’re retired educators. My sister was a teacher before she became a stay-at-home mom, my aunt, it just goes on,” Dillard said. “I really feel like teaching is in my blood. I don’t necessarily have a story, like a lot of other teachers do that got them into teaching, but I truly feel like this is something God put me on the planet to do.”
Dillard loves building relationships with her peers and lives in the moment. Dillard teaches PALS and principles of public service.
“I get to build relationships with people that I wouldn’t otherwise get to build outside of school in the traditional nine-to-five job,” Dillard said. “I love just to lift people up and encourage them and cheer them on, and in doing so I form greater relationships.”
While school isn’t everyone’s favorite place to be, Dillard strives to make it fun, she makes people want to go to school, make new memories and build up those relationships.
In addition to Dillard’s honor, Kaori Hickerson was recently named Memorial’s first Paraprofessional of the Year.
