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Eastham teachers win honors
Banner Daily Update posted Sat. June 16
EASTHAM — Nauset Public Schools recently announced its top employees for the 2006-2007 school year, and the Elementary Teacher of the Year and Nauset Region Teacher of the Year both teach in Lower Cape Cod schools.
Nauset Regional High School math teacher Stephen Swiniarski is recognized as the Nauset Region Teacher of the Year, and music teacher Chuck Hollander-Essig is the Elementary Teacher of the Year. Employee of the Year honors go to Gina Henson, educational assistant at Orleans Elementary School.
A 20-year veteran of the Nauset school system, Swiniarski attributes receiving the award to an experience he had early on his career while teaching in another school system. He was having a tough time adjusting as a new teacher and some of his students invited him to a big game against a rival school. Even though he lived 50 miles outside the school system, Swiniarski attended the game, and that Monday students treated him with more respect and things went “smoother” for him. Since, then, Swiniarski has involved himself in numerous extracurricular activities, from basketball to theater, sometimes “just as a fan.” Nauset Public Schools Supt. Michael Gradone says Swiniarski has “inspired many students to both continue studying math beyond high school and take their skills into the world.”
Hollander-Essig has shared his teaching gift with students at Eastham and Wellfleet Elementary Schools for 27 years, and he spent the first six years of his career in Provincetown and Truro school systems. Although he’s called “a music teacher,” Hollander-Essig considers himself “a teacher who uses music to teach.”
“I’ve always felt that Chuck is a teacher of children first and music is the medium through which he builds relationships,” says Gradone, who was one of three principals who first hired Hollander-Essig 33 years ago.
Hollander-Essig is proud to mention two things looking back on his career: one, that he was never taken away from teaching students by a meeting; and two, that he was able to teach all four of his own children.
The award recipients were recognized along with retirees June 14 at 7 p.m. at the Nauset District School Committees Joint Meeting in the Nauset Regional Middle School auditorium.
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Jun 14th, 2007