At its May meeting the Johnson City Board of Education heard a performance from Lakeridge Elementary students and recognized dozens of students and teacher leaders from across the district for academic and extracurricular achievements.

Why it matters: the recognitions highlighted district academic gains, extracurricular success and a teacher-leader professional development initiative that staff say supports classroom instruction across schools.

Highlights and awards: Lakeridge fourth-grade students performed selections from a musical titled Hail to the Presidents; the Lakeridge representative noted the school was recognized as a reward school and achieved the highest level of student academic growth (level 5) for the 2023-24 school year. The board recognized individual student awards including second place in the Tennessee civics essay contest (Cooper Glennon), runner-up in the state spelling bee (Swatok Bangaroo), three students with perfect ACT scores (Sarah Lierrison, Zoe Norman, Christian Zarate), and students earning Speech & Debate academic All-American honors from Science Hill (Olivia Castillo, Taylor Roby, Amy Lee). A Lakeridge Destination Imagination team placed second in the state and is scheduled to compete at the global tournament in Kansas City in May.

Teacher-leader program: Robin Murphy, school counselor at Northside Elementary, spoke about the district's teacher-leader cohort. Murphy said the program helped participants bring ideas from conferences back to their schools and increased "collective efficacy" among teachers. Murphy described one classroom tool she introduced as "Curie pod," saying it is "a very interactive platform that the students are 100% engaged in. They're so excited. They asked me to teach my lessons through Curie pod all the time." She thanked district leaders for support of the program and said the cohort felt like "a mini little family" focused on collaboration and professional growth.

The board also recognized teacher leaders and principals from multiple schools and thanked community partners for donations that support school programs.