KTAR’s October ‘Pay Tribute to a Teacher’ award goes to Gilbert first-grade teacher

The KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Outspoken with Bruce & Gaydos “Pay Tribute to a Teacher” award for October went to Candice Smith, a first-grade teacher at Val Vista Academy in Gilbert.

The award, sponsored by Your Valley Toyota Dealers, gives a deserving teacher $2,500 each month.

Smith is in her 23rd year of teaching and has been teaching first grade for a decade.

She tells Outspoken with Bruce & Gaydos her favorite part of teaching is the relationships she makes with students and teachers.

“It’s been an honor to be a part of … not just my first graders [lives], but their families too inviting me in. I’ve had tough situations where some of my students have lost family members in tragic ways. And so being able to show up for that family and be at the funeral or be a part of a dance recital or just something in their lives outside of school is something that really sticks out to me,” she said.

Smith was nominated for the award by one of her students’ mothers, who writes that Ms. Smith teaches beyond the curriculum.

“She has created a classroom where learning extends beyond academics by helping students understand their emotions, practice self-regulation, build healthy boundaries and develop confidence,” the nomination read.

Smith said she will use the prize money to help fund classroom projects or the art club she runs at school, as well as taking her own child on vacation.

Want to nominate somebody for the “Pay Tribute to a Teacher” award? Submissions are accepted here.

Funding for this journalism is made possible by the Arizona Local News Foundation.

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