John Baldwin Teacher Among Five Finalists for County Teacher of the Year Award

A Danville teacher has been selected as a semi-finalist for county teacher of the year.

of John Baldwin Elementary School is one of five Contra Costa County teachers who were chosen out of the 20 original finalists for the award.

Kenyon was chosen from over 8,200 teachers across the county by the Contra Costa County Office of Education. She was selected as the San Ramon Valley Unified School District finalist last month.

If she is selected as the county teacher of the year she will represent the county in the State Teacher of the Year contest this fall.

“This was an unbelievable honor and a complete surprise,” said Kenyon. “I feel more than a bit overwhelmed by it [but] it’s awesome because it’s an opportunity for me to represent other teachers who are very serious about their profession.”

Kenyon has been teaching for 15 years. This is her 11th year at John Baldwin, where she has taught both fourth and fifth grade.

She said she hadn’t necessarily always wanted to be a teacher but she “found teaching along the way” and became a resource teacher and then a teacher for special education before coming to San Ramon to teach at John Baldwin.

Kenyon is well respected and liked by her students, fellow teachers and staff but it is perhaps her activities outside of school that have garnered the most attention.

Kenyon took a big part in bringing the prestigious Columbia University Teachers College Reading and Writing Project to her school.

The project aims at arming teachers with the latest and greatest teaching methods so they can help teach modern reading and writing techniques to their students.

Kenyon travels to New York at her own expense so she can attend the lectures and workshops at Columbia. She then takes it upon herself to spread that knowledge freely to her co-teachers so that John Baldwin Elementary gets the most up-to-date reading and writing education.

And she said that this extra credit work she does is even more important with so few education dollars to go around.

“This kind of work becomes more and more important as cuts continue because the lack of money for training [could] ruin teacher’s ability to learn,” said Kenyon. “We need to come together and support each other.”

She said she is grateful for the nomination. Despite the honor, however, Kenyon is quick to divert attention to her colleagues and to urge everyone involved to keep the quality of education high even as education spending is ground to an all time low.

Kenyon said she hopes to use her nomination as an opportunity to draw attention to that cause and maintain the quality of education that San Ramon is known for.

“We’re all in this together,” she said. “It takes a village.”