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Most adults can look back on their school days and remember having one teacher who really made a difference. Someone who made learning fun and genuinely cared about individual students.
Years from now, many students at North Saginaw Charter Academy in Saginaw will probably recall Kathy Watson as that special teacher in their lives.
By all accounts, Watson, the fifth-grade teacher at this first-year school, has a knack for motivating students to achieve their full potentials.
"This school was a last resort," one mother says. "I don't know what I would have done if Mrs. Watson had not been able to reach my son."
North Saginaw Principal Paul Fallon says Watson is one reason more and more parents are sending their children to his school. "Parents and students alike are just drawn to her," he says.
The school opened in August 1999 with only 135 students, but has since attracted more than 215 students from the areas of Bay City, Saginaw, and Midland.
Fallon says when he interviewed Watson for her position last summer, "I felt like I was the one being interviewed.
"She was sizing me up to see if she would have the freedom to teach in her style and character," he adds. "At that moment I knew I had to have her on my staff."
For her part, Watson was only interested in the job if she could fully engage her students in the learning process. Fallon says he was sold when she said she wanted "to reach the hearts of her students, not just their intellects."
And that's exactly what she has done.
This past winter, Mrs. Watson's class of 19 students traveled to Spring Hill, an outdoor retreat area, for three days of exploratory learning. This spring, her class will be experiencing firsthand the struggles of early settlers. Watson has teamed up with a friend who reenacts life as a French fur trapper in the northern Lower Peninsula.
"My students are going to learn what life was like before television and video games," says Watson.
Watson says she would not be as successful with students without "Making Waves in Education," a motivational program developed by Michael Fox, a college freshman at Saginaw Valley State University and a former student of Principal Fallon.
"Making Waves enhances and celebrates even the smallest of achievements by students," she says. Depending on the level of attainment, students earn rewards including trips to go ice skating and bowling as well as smaller prizes such as food and drinks. Students have no idea when rewards are coming so they are always working to make improvements, says Watson.
National Heritage Academies, the education management organization that operates North Saginaw, is considering adopting the "Making Waves" program in the other charter schools it manages.
Meanwhile, North Saginaw plans to add a sixth-grade class and will continue to add a grade each year until the eighth grade.
And as word spreads about teachers like Kathy Watson, Principal Fallon may soon be considering a major building expansion project.
"If they come, we will build it," he says.
