‘She leads by example’: Beaufort Co. names new district teacher of the year

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Battery Creek High School teacher Judy Copeland was named teacher of the year for Beaufort County School District in 1992.

When Superintendent Frank Rodriguez came Aimee Whitesell’s classroom to tell her she was a finalist for Beaufort County School District’s teacher of the year award, he had a hard time pulling her away from her students.

Whitesell, a biology teacher at Battery Creek High School, was leading a lab.

“The kids were engaged and focused — what you want to see,” he said.

Even at Friday’s teacher of the year brunch, Whitesell was still hearing from her students, who messaged her through the classroom app Remind 101 asking for updates on the ceremony.

They weren’t disappointed. Whitesell was ultimately named the district’s teacher of the year for 2021-22.

Whitesell has been a teacher for nine years, and at Battery Creek for four years. Denise Lessard, who moved from assistant principal to principal at Battery Creek this year after Cox was promoted to the district office, said that Whitesell is “the epitome of a whole, complete educator.”

“She leads by example,” Lessard said, noting that Whitesell is a mentor and curriculum leader across the school. “She doesn’t talk a lot, she just does.”

Whitesell is the school’s first district teacher of the year in several years. Judy Copeland, who worked at Battery Creek High School and was named teacher of the year for the district in 1992, said Saturday that she was “very proud” of Whitesell.

Each of the district’s schools nominate and select a teacher of the year in May. Those teachers could then apply for the district-level award; out of those who applied, a panel of parents, retired educators and community members selected five finalists for the title in August.

Whitesell is now eligible to compete for the South Carolina teacher of the year title, which will be announced in the spring.

Whitesell is preceded by Megan DeWeese, a first-grade teacher at Okatie Elementary School. For the next year, DeWeese will lead the district’s Teacher Forum, an advisory council made up of each school’s teacher of the year that reports to Rodriguez and the school board; next fall, Whitesell will take over the role after learning from DeWeese.

The biology teacher said that in the middle of “all the hard things we’ve had to deal with” during the pandemic, Friday’s banquet was “a celebration.”

“There’s hope,” she said. “I teach biology. I teach high school. I’m in the thick of it. I’m a tested subject. But you can do this. We can all do this, if we stick together.”

When asked why she returns to the classroom every year, Whitesell didn’t hesitate.

“The students, absolutely” she said, adding that she loves to see students embrace the mission of Battery Creek’s “Leader in Me” program.

“Watching them figure out how to do something, watching them grasp a really hard concept or even step up to be a leader is why I want to be there every single day, why I laugh all the time, why I go back and why I appreciate being a teacher there.”

Here’s the full list of each school’s teacher of the year, with finalists for district teacher of the year marked with an asterisk:

This story was originally published October 1, 2021 at 3:29 PM.

Rachel Jones

The Island Packet

843-631-6039

Rachel Jones covers education for the Island Packet and the Beaufort Gazette. She attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and has worked for the Daily Tar Heel and Charlotte Observer. She has won awards from the South Carolina Press Association, Associated College Press and North Carolina College Media Association for feature writing and education reporting.