Lanier STEM teacher named Hall County Teacher of the Year

The Hall County School District has named Susan Howard of Lanier Elementary School its 2022-23 Teacher of the Year.

Howard teaches STEM classes for grades kindergarten through 5 at the Lanier Elementary School for Inquiry, Investigation and Innovation. She has taught at Lanier for the past 2 years, with 12 years of teaching experience under her belt.

Howard is not only a teacher at Lanier, but serves as the school’s STEM Club Coordinator, Robotics Coordinator and is also a member of the school’s leadership team. The school system says that Howard has helped build the elementary school’s STEM program “from scratch.”

“Mrs. Howard provides a dynamic, high-energy environment with engaging hands-on activities that challenge students to be thinkers, innovators, and creators of wonderful collaborative STEM projects,” Principal John Wiggins said in a press release. “She ignites a fire for curiosity in all our kids as they solve authentic real-world problems with an engineering-by-design mindset. Her enthusiasm, passion, and expertise in combining science, technology, engineering and math [are] amazing.”

“It is a great honor to be recognized as Hall County’s 2022-2023 Teacher of The Year,” Howard says. “The calling to teach is already a privilege. My mission as an educator to positively impact the trajectory of the lives of children so that they too can find their calling, be purpose-driven, and live a life fulfilled, is a reward in itself. Being named Hall County’s Teacher of The Year nearly halfway through my career makes the journey a little sweeter than it already is.”

Howard will now compete for the honor of Teacher of the Year at the state level.