Golden Apple: Ivy Academy, Skillern Elementary, Cara Stepp

SODDY DAISY, TN (WDEF) – Most good teachers have a way turning their classrooms into a warm and inviting place to learn. At Ivy Academy, Cara Stepp helps the youngest students have a great kindergarten experience. That kind of personal attention earned Ms. Stepp this week’s Golden Apple Award.

Ryan Dixon is the Principal at Skillern Elementary.

He says, “We’re going to be seeing Cara Stepp a kindergarten teacher. She is a very caring teacher. She’s a teacher who strives to know all of her students. She has high expectations. She’s also very, um, just aware of all the needs of her students in her room. Um she’s great. We are really thankful that she’s here at Skillern. Come on let’s go.”

When asked to describe herself, Ms. Stepp says, “I am a mother, and a wife, and a teacher, and a friend, and a lifelong learner, a Christian, so many things.”

She continues, “I knew from the time that I was in first grade, because of my first-grade teacher that I wanted to be a teacher and just from there on out that I had my mind made up. I tried to be just like my teachers as I was in school.  I had a Blackboard in my room that I would use. So… yes always wanted to be a teacher.”

Her students say, ” I like how we do the photographs. I like to do all the photographs. I like uh when we read books. I like, I like said that we play, we to play um. Some toys drawing.”

And, “Yeah I like learning. how to do things. I like to learn new phonograms. Learning, learning. That… it’s kind of easy. I like to read about apples. I like when we get to do quiet playtime.”

Ms. Stepp concludes, “I feel like, I feel a need, I feel like they need me, and I love what I do. So, I love that I get to give that joy to them. And they in return give it to me. I want them to remember that I love them and that I love to teach, and the memories that we had learning together.”