Baltimore City Schools teacher Berol Dewdney was named Maryland Teacher of the Year on Thursday night in a ceremony aired on public television celebrating educators across the state.
Dewdney is a pre-kindergarten teacher at The Commodore John Rodgers School in East Baltimore, just south of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dewdney, who has taught at the school for nine years, has been designated a model teacher and an instructional coach for the school system.
The Baltimore City schools held a watch party at The Sinclair, an event venue, with two former Teacher of the Year winners. A video tweeted out by the system shows those gathered cheering, jumping up and down and swarming the visibly stunned and elated Dewdney when the news was announced.
Dewdney, 31, is the third city schools teacher in the past six years to be named Maryland Teacher of the Year.
“The kids are the real teachers of the year,” Dewdney said in an interview shortly after she won. “Everything I am and want to be is because of them.”
Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Sonja Santelises has watched Dewdney teach and described her classroom as an atmosphere that blends academics and play. “It is rigorous early learning,” Santelises said. “Intense fun, intense relationship building. Her mastery of brain science comes out in so many ways.”
Most of Dewdney’s pre-K children are reading by the end of the year, Santelises said. Many of her fellow teachers from Commodore John Rodgers attended the watch party, as did teachers from across the city she had coached as well as administrators from North Avenue.
“I am overwhelmed with gratitude and love right now because I get to stand beside outstanding educators,” Dewdney said.
She said she feels lucky to have been able to teach in the city, and spoke of “the unstoppable power of kids.”
Dewdney was chosen by a panel of judges who represent various Maryland education organizations, including principals, teachers, school boards and teachers unions. The selection is based on a ”set of written narratives and interviews that included discussion around student engagement, creativity in instruction, improved school culture, education and instruction reaching beyond the classroom, community collaboration, and student achievement results,” state officials said.
Dewdney will now compete with teachers around the country for the National Teacher of the Year award. The announcement will come in April 2023, and typically occurs at a White House ceremony. Winners of the Maryland award spend the year speaking and advising educators around the state.
The selection process began with 24 teachers chosen by local school systems. The state narrowed the list to seven finalists from the following public school systems: Dewdney; Charles Whittaker, Anne Arundel County; Alicia Amaral Freeman, Baltimore County; Jonathan Kurtz, Frederick County; Ashley Gereli, Harford County; Elizabeth McDonald, Washington County; and Rebecca Mathews, Wicomico County.
Maryland has designated a teacher of the year for the past 32 years.
“As an early childhood educator, Ms. Dewdney is setting the foundation for positive outcomes in school and life,” Maryland State Superintendent of Schools Mohammed Choudhury said in a statement. “We know that the single most important school-based factor in student success is the teacher in front of the classroom.”
