Teacher Brooke Harty LRSD's Edwin Parr Award Nominee

W.A. Day Elementary School and F.P. Walshe School teacher Brooke Harty is Livingstone Range School Division’s nominee for the Edwin Parr Teacher Award.

The award honours outstanding first-year teachers in Alberta, and according to F.P. Walshe Principal Chad Jensen, Brooke’s nomination is well-deserved.

“Brooke has been an outstanding addition to our team at F.P. Walshe and our Crossroads campus,” says Chad. “She has demonstrated an outstanding ability to build relationships with her students and our staff. In particular, Brooke has taken a leadership role in personalizing programming for our Outreach students and has effectively utilized technology to support her students' learning. We are very fortunate to have Brooke as a member of our team.”

Brooke balances teaching Grade 3 numeracy and literacy at W.A. Day Elementary School in the mornings with afternoons teaching Grades 10, 11, and 12 humanities courses at F.P. Walshe/Crossroads Outreach School. It may be overwhelming for many first-year teachers, but from an early age she wanted to become a teacher because of its unique path. 

“Teaching is a passion,” says Brooke. “It is a unique, complex, and hardworking career that belongs to individuals that have a love for learning, and a love for making a difference in people’s lives. It is because of my experience of growing up as a continuous learner that I wanted to become a teacher.”

In her roles at two schools, Brooke has the opportunity to connect with a breadth of students that most first-year teachers don’t get. And she loves building relationships with each student as they learn and progress. “Every day I am blessed to teach and impact my students,” she says, “making their learning experience the best possible. Not only do they learn from me, but I learn something new from them every single day! ”

School boards across the province nominate one exceptional candidate for the Edwin Parr Teacher Award to their Alberta School Boards Association (ASBA) zone committee each year. The successful nominees from each Zone are honoured at the ASBA Fall General Meeting.

Brooke says she feels humbled and overjoyed at being nominated for this award. “Being nominated for the Edwin Parr award is a true honour,” she says. “I love the job that I get to wake up and do every day. Being a teacher truly is the best job on earth. “

As the 2021 LRSD nominee, we congratulate Brooke and wish her the best of luck at this year’s awards.