Local educator a finalist for Missouri Teacher of the Year

By Jazmine Knight

A Spring Garden Middle School teacher got a nice surprise on Wednesday.

“I learned that I’m one of the Northwest Regional Teacher of the Year finalists,” Barbara Spencer said.

Spencer was thrown a surprise celebration Wednesday at Spring Garden surrounded by fellow teachers and administrators.

“I was (at a) 10 (level of) surprised,” she said. “I didn’t really know what the timeline was for regional teacher of the year finalists … so I was very, very surprised walking in.”

The art teacher said she is grateful to the administrators and staff at Spring Garden.

“They really were pulling for me and wanted me to win. And they sent me to Jefferson City to learn how to submit all my paperwork for the regional teacher of the year,” she said.

Now, Spencer has to submit the required documentation to compete for Missouri State Teacher of the Year. She says there are a couple of finalists in Northwest Missouri and one or two from all the other districts in Missouri.

“I guess we’ll all just go into a big pool and see how it goes from there. But that doesn’t happen until October,” Spencer said.

Spencer says she knew she wanted to be a middle school teacher from the moment she was hired. She had an option to choose between elementary and middle school but she knew exactly where she wanted to be.

“I’ve been in this building, in this room for my entire career. I always tell the kids I’m going to die here,” she said. “I want to teach middle school for the rest of my life. I love middle school kids. I think that they need advocates. And, you know, they’re kind of little weirdos.”

Spencer said middle schoolers are great.

“They’re not little kids but they’re not big kids. So I really love my students and I love being an art teacher,” she said. “I just can’t imagine doing anything else.”