Everyday Heroes is a regular feature in this staff blog. Remember to submit names of employees districtwide who have done something deserving of encouragement and praise. Give a shout-out to one of your colleagues at your school or support building and watch for it to appear in an upcoming Everyday Heroes blog post.

Here are our newest honorees:

Everyday Heroes
Reeves Middle School Principal Aaron Davis, Assistant Principal Karen Zarate and Administrative Professional Brandi Sorem

We would like to nominate our Reeves Middle School Administrators, Aaron Davis and Karen Zarate, and their assistant, Brandi Sorem, as Everyday Heroes for their exceptional leadership and unwavering support of ALL staff during the last 12 months of COVID unknowns. During this time we are fortunate to have this team on our side. 

Our Reeves administration has really centered the conversation around the whole person’s needs — for staff, students, and families. This includes bringing members of our Reeves community supplies, food vouchers, scheduling individual family check-ins with advisory groups multiple times this year, and allowing staff adequate accommodations to meet their own personal and family needs for safety during this time. All of this while juggling schedule changes, parent emails and phone conversations, staff questions, and their own home lives. 

At Reeves, it is said, “If better is possible, good is not enough.” Our administrators don’t just speak the words, they act on them.

From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you and are so incredibly fortunate to be working with everyday heroes like you. 
Submitted by Stefanie Ramsay-Werts, Reeves Middle School Arts and ELA Teacher, on behalf of the Reeves Middle School staff

Everyday Hero
Phyllis Price, Nurse, Garfield Elementary School

Phyllis has worked super hard the last year and stayed in person pretty much the whole year. She filled in at Hansen and helped organize over there when they had kids start to return before Garfield did. Phyllis, like many other district nurses have volunteered for the vaccine clinics and also the clinics that are not through the district. She has been approached and contacted by many of the staff and even other staff members not even at Garfield to help them with getting vaccinated even on the weekends. 

At Garfield, Phyllis is here working extremely hard to keep the students and staff safe. She is always thinking about what works best and what needs to be improved. I know I can speak for most of the staff here, that we are so very thankful for her here. 
Submitted by Tiffany Kulseth, Health Room Assistant, Garfield Elementary

Everyday Heroes
OSD Communications and Communications Department

Our Communications team deserves special recognition for the work they do each and every day, mostly at the eleventh hour, to provide updated accessible documentation and videos to our staff and community. It seems just as we are finalizing information around our response to the pandemic the information changes. We are always met with a “how can I help?” attitude and a true customer service approach to our needs. The Comm team helps us craft or record the message and ensure we make it accessible to those who need those supports. They do this work quickly, expertly and without expectation of acknowledgement. We feel very fortunate to have them in our corner.
Submitted by Executive Director of Operations Frank Wilson

How to nominate an Everyday Hero

• Email the Communications and Community Relations Department (communications@osd.wednet.edu) a few sentences, and no more than 200 words, about why the person deserves recognition. It’s easiest to write as if speaking directly to the colleague, such as “Thank you for helping with…” or “I really appreciated when you…”
• Write “Everyday Heroes” in the subject heading of the email.
• Include your first and last name as the person submitting the comments.
• Include the first and last name of the OSD employee you are recognizing.
• Include the job title and work location (school or department) of the person you are recognizing.

All submissions will be posted in this blog on a weekly basis and archived each week.