Spring Garden, Hosea staffers get district honors

By Marcus Clem

Barbara Spencer and Miranda Ham are recognized as the very best at what they do across the St. Joseph School District for the 2023-24 school year.

In being named as Support Person of the Year, Ham is said to represent the height of work done by hundreds of staffers, which includes all people who work in a school building but are not full-time teachers or administrators. Ham works at Hosea Elementary School. As a school counselor, a trusted guide for students of all sorts, Ham cites how she’s been able to travel to eight different countries mostly for charitable causes. This has served to shape her philosophy on how to make a difference.

“Having that, an understanding globally, that the world is bigger than our community has helped me appreciate humanity and see how other people live and help build relationships with people,” Ham said. “And I think that is the key to working with kids, working with adults, working with their families.”

Spencer, a veteran art educator, is the Teacher of the Year. She said her recognition should never be about her and what she independently has been able to do. That’s because every single lesson she has offered is based on an idea someone else gave to her or inspired within her. Spencer has worked her entire career at Spring Garden Middle School because it is a place that supports this kind of teamwork, she said.

“What is special about not just me, but my building, is that we really just have banded together, and taught the kids,” Spencer said. “It doesn’t matter what our content is, it doesn’t matter what the kids are coming in here to learn — and they do learn — but, we’re meeting them where they are, and we’re trying to meet their needs.”

Spencer was selected by a panel from among three teacher finalists, the other two being Thomas Corrington, a Robidoux Middle School science teacher, and Sydney Servais, a fourth grade teacher at Parkway Elementary. Spencer will move on to the regional competitive level with an eye toward perhaps becoming the Northwest Missouri Regional Teacher of the Year. Should she prevail at that level, a statewide selection process will follow to name the Missouri Teacher of the Year for 2023-24.

Ham was selected by a panel from among three support person finalists, the other two being Lori Buhman, a nutrition services manager at Eugene Field Elementary and Ann McClintick, a social worker at Lafayette High School.