Kimberly Dickstein-Hughes is an English Language Arts instructor at Haddonfield Memorial High School and has about 100 students at all grade levels. Her students pushed her to apply for the award, which she learned she won just before she got married last weekend.
So, why does she think she came out on top?
“I teach my students how to advocate and activate ideas and I do that with them,” she told KYW Newsradio. “I model that for them and we do these things together and I’ve really built quite the community around my teaching philosophies.”
The award comes with the money to take a 6-month sabbatical that Kimberly will start in January. She'll take that time to tour the state, meeting with other teachers who won the award on the county level.
“I'd like for them to try to give voices who are otherwise unheard, or individuals who are otherwise unseen who are doing great work in their classroom and sharing this platform with them,” Dickstein-Hughes added.
Among the unique way she gets her students to go above and beyond, she got some involved in a national Shakespeare Competition. Others read about a child soldier, then helped another from South Sudan attend college in this country.
Dickstein-Hughes says she'll stay in touch with her students while she takes that sabbatical.