District honors top school employees

Minden and Gardnerville Elementary School Vice Principal Amy Carter and Inclusive Education Specialist Stephanie Scheick were named top Douglas County School District employees.

Carter received the Douglas County School District Distinguished Educator Award earlier this month.

“I was very surprised about the award, I do this because I love what I do,” she said. “Though it is nice to be recognized, I don’t expect it and just love what I do for my kiddos.”

Carter has been an educator for 20 years, working as a fifth-grade English writing teacher, and in three other school districts.

“There’s so much that I do from safety things and going over assessment data, but I think my favorite thing is interacting with the kids and being a part of the two amazing schools and staff that I work with,” she said.

Scheick received the overall Douglas County School District Distinguished Support Staff Employee award.

More than 100 Douglas County teachers and support staff attended the annual Distinguished Employee Recognition Award ceremony on Sept. 1.

Teachers and staff are nominated and voted for recognition in three categories by their colleagues: Distinguished educator, employees and support staff.

George Whittell High School’s Ashley Baker was awarded for her role as the Registrar-attendance secretary with the Secondary Distinguished Support Staff Employee Award.

Baker said due to a shortage of staff last year, she wore many hats including the school nurse,

counselor, scholarship coordinator, supervisor, head secretary, behavior manager, sub planner and more.

“I quickly became the go-to person for everyone’s needs and became a master at problem solving and figuring things out as I went along,” she said. “After I received the award, I felt validated for the hard year and many hard days I had. It was nice to be recognized for everything that I did that was outside of my job duties.”

Douglas High School’s Distinguished Support Staff employee Karen Seelbinder has been head secretary at the high school for 17 years.

“I took a chance and applied for a job here at the high school, was hired on by Mr. (Marty) Swisher and have been blessed to be here ever since,” she said.

Seelbinder said she enjoys the fast-paced job and the surprises working in a high school brings every day.

“I like to tell people that I get to work at Douglas High School,” she said. “I have never worked harder; I’ve never made less money and I have never loved my job more.”

As head secretary, Seelbinder takes on many jobs including working with the students, staff and administration team, calendaring events, responding to emails, working on graduation planning, and more.

“I tell people I do a little bit of a ton of things,” she said.

Other recipients of the Distinguished Support Staff employee awards were Jacks Valley Elementary School’s Judy Sapien, Minden Elementary School’s Lisa Berg, Gardnerville Elementary School’s Danielle Goldstein, Meneley Elementary Schools’ Grant Stein, Pinion Hills Elementary School’s Jim Simpson, Zephyr Cove Elementary School’s Toni Renck, Scarcelli Elementary School’s Tara Fluhrer, Pau-wa-Lu Middle School’s Courtney Burrows, Carson Valley Middle School’s Troy Owens and ASPIRE Academy Leslie Myers.

School nutritionist Rhonda Ortega, Student Health Services Danial Goldstein, Transportation, Travis Keene, Facilities Mario Valez and Information Technology Heidi McEntire were also recognized for the award.

Piñon Hills Elementary School’s Karen Sullivan was recognized as the Elementary Distinguished Educator and Carson Valley Middle School’s Michelle Baugh received the award for Secondary Distinguished Educator.

Other distinguished educators were Gardnerville Elementary School’s Heather Daniels, Meneley Elementary School’s melissa Willis, Scarselli Elementary School’s Augusta Hinton, Jacks Valley Elementary School’s Becky Goins, ASPIRE Academy High School’s Stormy Herald, Zephyr Cove Elementary School’s Hailey Metzler, Pau-Wa-Lu Middle School’s Alisha Jahries and Daniel Hyden.

EPIC Instructional Coach Cris Jezek received the Douglas County School District Distinguished Service Provider/Trainer Award.

Scarselli Elementarty School’s Susan McNeall received the Douglas County Distinguished School Administrator award and Health Services’ Jen Tyndall received the Douglas County School District Distinguished Classified Supervisor award.