Students and their Big Shanty Intermediate School teachers thought they were gathered in the cafeteria for a back-to-school magic show. They didn’t know that the magic finale featured the surprise of a lifetime for one of the school’s long-serving teachers. 

As the magician disappeared, Superintendent Chris Ragsdale appeared on stage to name Karen Wright the Cobb County School District Teacher of the Year! 

“Cobb is the best place to teach and learn. I love the family aspect. I love that Superintendent Ragsdale is real with us about the things that are going on in Cobb County. We are the second biggest district in the state, and we attract the best of the best. That makes me very proud to be part of Cobb County,” declared Cobb’s new District Teacher of the Year. 

Before being named the District-Level Teacher of the Year, Superintendent Ragsdale crowned Ms. Wright the Elementary School-Level Teacher of the Year in July. Like the prior announcement, a parade of District leaders and school board members joined in on the surprise announcement. Her family was also at Big Shanty to support her, as they have throughout her years as a teacher. 

"Cobb teachers are the best. The Cobb community is the best and that is one of the reasons why our teachers, like Ms. Wright, stay for decades. We have been giving our families an amazing product for the last decade, thanks to the stability of our leaders and schools, we will continue to," said Cobb Schools Board Chair Randy Scamihorn. 

Ms. Wright has been part of the Cobb County School District family for 27 years—her entire career as an educator. In the past, she served students at Murdock Elementary School, Blackwell Elementary School, and Acworth Elementary School, but Big Shanty has been her home for almost two decades. She now serves as Big Shanty’s 4th grade ELA teacher and team lead. 

"As Teacher of the Year, Karen Wright represents a big reason why I am so focused on keeping schools, schools. Teachers do not need distractions from outside our schools preventing them from what they do best - teach," said Superintendent Ragsdale. 

This veteran Cobb educator gushes about her students, many of whom rushed to smother her with hugs following the announcement.

Ms. Wright proclaimed, “I love what I do!” 

Her students describe the dancing, singing ELA teacher as fun, supportive, caring, kind, and “a real leader.” 

As Big Shanty 5th grader Kavya stated, “She is the best teacher ever!” 

The excitement of the Teacher of the Year announcement left some of Kavya’s fellow fifth graders fighting back tears, tears of joy. 

Skaii revealed that she had never been as happy in her life as she was when she learned that her former teacher had been crowned Cobb’s Teacher of the Year. 

“I’ve never been so happy that I almost cried,” Skaii confessed. 

Decades ago, the “best teacher ever” almost didn’t become a teacher at all. 

“I originally did not want to be a teacher. It never crossed my mind. I was in school to be an interior designer and then to be an architect, and I just was struggling. My aunt called me one day. She was a teacher for 20 years in New York, and she said, 'I think you'd make a great teacher,'” Ms. Wright recalled. 

So, she made a pros and cons list about being an architect, her young dream, or becoming a teacher, her future passion. As she considered her future, she remembered her own teachers and how they had helped her. 

“I was a struggling student all through elementary school, and because of that, those teachers really made me think about what I could do for other students,” Ms. Wright explained. “I wanted to help kids the way I had teachers who helped me.”

When Cobb’s top teacher sees a student who may be struggling, she spends a lot of time with them to find out what they’re missing and help the student fill in the gaps. That is exactly what she did when one of her students could not read and struggled with Dyslexia. Ms. Wright worked with the student every morning, helping her work through the reading process. 

“By the end of the school year, she was reading, really reading,” Ms. Wright proudly revealed. “To see her confidence level go up, standing taller, she knew she could do it.” 

Another student who was struggling overcame challenges to follow in her teacher’s footsteps and become a teacher herself. This former student-turned-teacher won a Teacher of the Year award herself. 

Sometimes, Ms. Wright’s students are the ones positively impacting their teacher. More than a decade ago, she had a 5th-grade student in the hospital homebound program for almost six months of the school year. As part of her cancer fight, the student decided to have her arm removed. To help their classmate, Ms. Wright and her students worked together with specialists from the District to adapt the classroom to meet all of her students' needs. 

“She is truly one of my inspirations,” Ms. Wright proclaimed. “When I think I can't do something, I think of her because of what she went through. The decisions she made at ten, 11 years old and then came back to school and just continued to rise during that school year are inspiring.” 

Ms. Wright used the opportunity to put her kind and caring teaching approach on full display.

“One of the days when she came back, we all tied our dominant arm behind our back so we would know what it felt like for her. We all helped each other. We tied each other shoelaces. We opened milk cartons. We sharpened pencils, and to me, that just showed the perseverance of education. She came in here, and she just did it. She just rose, and it gave those children inspiration. It gave me inspiration,” Cobb’s Teacher of the Year explained. 

Just as she is always looking for ways to help her students, she also looks for opportunities to serve as a mentor to new Cobb teachers. 

“I love to help teachers work through their issues. If they're struggling with something, whether it's how to form an email to a parent or how to reach a child with a strategy,” Ms. Wright said. “I think mentorship is extremely important.” 

Cobb’s #1 Teacher encourages new teachers to find a positive, high-energy veteran teacher they can stick with, learn from, and gain as much knowledge from as possible. According to Ms. Wright, the mentors will help their younger teammates gain confidence. 

That is exactly what Ms. Wright did decades ago when she started her journey as a Cobb educator. At least one of her mentors was at Big Shanty when Ms. Wright was named Cobb’s Teacher of the Year. One mentor’s advice has also shaped how Ms. Wright conducts her class: Treat students the way she wants her own child treated, kindness matters, and keep your voice low and your energy high. 

Cobb’s Teacher of the Year has advice for students at Big Shanty and beyond: “Hard work wins. Keep pushing for your dreams, keep pushing for your goals, and never give up!”