Corporate Landing Middle ('24-'25) / Kempsville High School ('25-'26)
Virginia Beach, VA
Kristin has sponsored her middle school’s National Junior Honor Society for the past seven years. She has been a great role model for students in the Honor Society to live up to the five pillars of Scholarship, Leadership, Service, Character, and Citizenship. She has also coached the school’s Forensics (Speech) Team for the past three years, earning the citywide championship two years ago. On this team, 6th through 8th grade students learn a literary piece, memorize it, and perform it in front of adult judges. She’s also been the 8th grade hallway lead teacher, responsible for disseminating information to all teachers on the hallway, and science department head, responsible for overseeing proper pacing and evaluation of curriculum taught by the fellow science teachers. She has done these last two mentioned jobs for the past eight years. She has served on numerous Earth Science curriculum development and writing committees for Virginia Beach City Public Schools and the Virginia Department of Education.
Kristin has been nominated for Teacher of the Year three times in the past sixteen years she’s worked at Corporate Landing Middle. This award is based on nominations of teachers by their peers for their excellent work inside and outside of the school building. She received the Distinguished Educator Award during the 2020 – 2021 school year as a runner up to the Teacher of the Year. She has also been awarded her five year, ten year, fifteen year, and twenty year service awards by Virginia Beach City Public Schools over her 21 year career thus far. She has won awards and recognitions from educational technology companies, such as Explore Learning (the maker of GIZMOS simulations), for her use of their technologies in her science classroom. She has also won the “I Make a Difference” Award several times over her many years at Corporate Landing Middle. This weekly award is presented to teachers from their peers for their outstanding work throughout the building and for going the extra mile.
She has been a consistent leader for her hallway and a source of wise counsel for the Corporate Landing Middle administration in terms of school-wide issues. She’s been on the Principal’s Advisory Committee and Master Schedule Committee for numerous years to assist with identifying and providing solutions for any challenges the school could be facing and to help organize and ensure that day-to-day activities run smoothly. She’s also been on the Dropout Task Force for about ten years. Its purpose is to assist the guidance department with improving student attendance rates throughout the school, which improves overall student success. She has overcome numerous challenges within the school by providing assistance to all departments within the building. As all teachers, she was able to adapt her educational style during the virtual learning of the COVID pandemic days. Those adaptations have made her a stronger teacher and able to adapt more effectively than she had been able to before.