“I enjoy teaching because everyday I have the opportunity to make a small difference, sometimes a big impact, on my students’ lives,” shared Spanish teacher Amy Stover.

Stover was recently selected as the 2023 Herb Kohl Educational Founder Teacher Fellow, and the process for winning this award has gone on since October.

“I was notified via an email that I had been nominated for this award by Mrs. Gerl, our Director of Student Services, on October 7,” shared Stover. “I had a month to complete an application that ended up being 13 pages long. I also had to ask Mrs. Hearden to complete a form and had three letters of recommendation from different constituents.”

Stover submitted her application on November 8, and after being informed that her application reached the last level of the process, she was emailed in March that she won this award.

“My initial reaction was disbelief,” she shared. “I was in my room working with a freshman. I had just explained something to this student and gave him a few minutes to answer some questions on his own. I checked my emails and there was one from the Herb Kohl Foundation. I was afraid to read it, but I opened it up.”

Stover added that she must have had a strange look on her face because the student asked if everything was okay. She explained that she thought she had just won an award, and the student jumped up and congratulated her.

“It was awesome to share that moment with him,” said Stover. “After school, I was still in disbelief until Mrs. Hearden hunted me down in the building to congratulate me and give me a hug! She got the same email that I did!”

She shared that she is “honored and humbled to receive this award and be recognized for the simple, little things that I do to help every student that I can at NDA, especially our Hispanic students and struggling learners.”

Stover said that she loves “when students discover what they can do when they dig deep, put forth effort and have someone in their corner caring and gently pushing them,” and she hopes that every student can have that opportunity.

Stover’s award came with a $5,000 dollar grant, which she is going to use to help pay for her Masters of Science in Education in Instructional Leadership, which she will be earning from Concordia University.