The event will honor six teachers from Unit 4 and six from District 116, chosen from over 250 nominations. From the press release:
Urbana, IL – April 30, 2018- Excitement is building as the 2018 Teacher of the Year Event draws closer for local educators. Napleton’s Auto Park of Urbana is hosting “Teacher of the Year” for the 2nd year in a row. Students, parents, and guardians of Champaign Unit 4 School District and Urbana School District 116 were encouraged to nominate a K-12 teacher who they feel should be recognized due to outstanding efforts in education. The nomination site closed on April 20th.
Jim Kroll, Executive Manager of Napleton’s Auto Park reported that the response this year exceeded his expectations, “We received over 250 individual nominations from students, parents, and guardians. We have a total of 125 nominees, many of whom were nominated multiple times. The amount of nominations and nominees almost doubled what we had last year. It is really exciting to see.” Kroll said the hard part for him starts now, “All the educators nominated are so deserving of recognition which is why we invite all of them to attend the award ceremony. The toughest part is trying to select six “winners”. In reality, they are all winners.” Six teachers (one elementary, middle and high school teacher from each of the two districts) will take home the $1,000 award and title “2018 Teacher of the Year”. The award ceremony will take place on Thursday, May 17th at Pear Tree Estate for all nominees. In addition to nominees, Superintendents of each district, Principals of each school with a nominated teacher, and members of the C-U Schools Foundation will all be in attendance.
Although the award ceremony is a private event, anyone can tune in to see the winners announced, reported Angie Fiala, Marketing Manager for Napleton’s Auto Park of Urbana. “We will have a Facebook Live event for anyone who would like to watch. We also plan to stream the event live to our website via YouTube. We really want to encourage everyone to share in the excitement of these wonderful educators in our community.”
Napleton’s Auto Park of Urbana is the largest automotive dealership in Central Illinois and the Napleton Automotive Group is Illinois #1 Dealer Group for the 4th year in a row *. Situated on 42 sprawling acres at the corner of I-74 & Cunningham in Urbana, Napleton’s Auto Park is home to six new car franchises including Toyota, Hyundai, Kia, Volkswagen, Mazda and Mitsubishi. The dealership also carries the largest selection of pre-owned vehicles in Central Illinois.