01-04-2025
Cecil Floyd Elementary's Shanon Cooper named 2025 teacher of the year
JOPLIN, Mo. — A Joplin elementary school teacher gets a big surprise Tuesday afternoon.
Shanon Cooper is the transitional kindergarten teacher at Cecil Floyd Elementary School—and now she's the 2025 Joplin Schools Teacher of the Year for the entire district.
Parents, staff, and students nominate deserving teachers, and Mrs. Cooper was chosen for her school. Then it was narrowed down to just her as this year's winner.
She says her role as the transitional kindergarten teacher is to get some of the youngest students ready for the next step of kindergarten.
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Those children sometimes come in with very little to no academic knowledge, but she also focuses on teaching them how to be kind and be a friend to others.
And while she was surprised and honored Tuesday, she knows so many teachers around her who also go above and beyond.
I feel like we all give our all. To be a teacher, I think your heart's on your sleeve. You love kids. You're there for the kids. And I think, I just try to make sure that everyday I show up for the kids, making sure they're learning, not only what they need to do academically, but also how to be a good person, how to have good character,' said Mrs. Cooper.
Mrs. Cooper taught 7th grade math for 10 years in another state, then took an 11-year hiatus to be with her own kids.
She went back to teaching kindergarten at Royal Heights for nine years, and she's now been at Cecil Floyd in her current role for the past two years.
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