Teachers are important contributors to society. They pass on their knowledge and foster critical thinking skills. They often inspire their students. They often challenge their students to push beyond a classroom curriculum and excel at an elevated level. It is no wonder that teachers are influential to students, as they spend an average of six to seven hours per day inside a classroom.
In 2016, Stephanie Dunn received Creekside Elementary School’s Teacher of the Year award. This year, Dunn won Indiana’s Academic Coach of the Year. Dunn was shocked and flattered to be considered for this award.
Dunn is the first-grade and second-grade high-ability teacher at Creekside in Franklin. She has been teaching for 19 years, 18 of which are at Creekside. Coaching the school’s math and science bowl teams is rewarding in many ways, she said.
“It is not scripted,” she said. “It is outside of the general classroom curriculum, and it isn’t the norm. It pushes the students and I like doing that.”
Each team consists of 12 to 15 third- and fourth-grade students. She has coached the math bowl for six years and science bowl for five years. Last year her Creekside science bowl team won the state championship title.
Dunn grew up and lives in Franklin with her husband, Joey, who is also a teacher at Indian Creek High School where he teaches agriculture and leads the FFA club. They met while in middle school, through 4-H. They are still both active in 4-H and assist the Johnson County Fair board during the fair week. They have a golden retriever named Poppy.
Dunn especially enjoys horses. She said her parents always wanted horses as children themselves, so they acquired horses before children. Dunn grew up loving them as well. She is the 4-H leader for the horse and pony club in Johnson County, which has 135 members. She also enjoys reading, crafts and traveling.
Dunn loves decorating, and in her house she puts up 11 Christmas trees. One tree stays up all year long, with a monthly change of decorations depending on the season, holiday or special event taking place in Indiana.
Inside her classroom, she sticks with what she loves. She uses a cactus theme because of her love of Arizona. Growing up as a child, her family often vacationed in Arizona. She said the color schemes of sage are calming inside the classroom, and that is not only to the students’ benefit, but hers as well.
Dunn knew she wanted to be a teacher since fifth grade, when she realized she wanted to be just like her teacher, Mrs. Jayne Yount. When asked if she thought she was like Yount today, she said she hopes so. “I hope one of my students is looking at me and says, ‘I want to be a teacher someday,’” she said.
She said things in the classroom and in our world have changed since her student days at Needham Elementary School. “Everything in the world has changed and it reflects in the classroom,” she said, adding that the hardest part is that accountability for parents and students is gone, and everything lands on the teachers. Changes in society, changes in curricula and governmental mandates can make teaching a challenge today.
Dunn said one of her favorite aspects of teaching is the students. She loves their unfiltered stories. Oftentimes those stories bring humor into a stressful occupation.
When asked about her future, Dunn said she “can’t image doing anything else, even on the hard days.”
