Three counselors from three different school districts have been selected to receive 2018’s Walter Kase Educator Excellence Awards for their outstanding efforts to create a school atmosphere that promotes respect for and understanding of diversity.

This year’s recipients include: Amy Cmaidalka of Bay Colony Elementary School in the Dickinson Independent School District, Dorothy Leahy of Tanglewood Middle School in the Houston Independent School District, and Na’Teasel La’Taye Davis of North Shore Senior High School in the Galena Park Independent School District.

Ms. Cmaidalka ensures, as she says, that “No Place for Hate® is more than just a program. It is our school climate!” She works hard with students, teachers and administrators at Bay Colony Elementary School to make sure lessons on gender, bias, race, religion, age, disability, language, socio-economic differences and current events are taught every day.  Lessons and activities center around the character trait of the month, and take place throughout the school year.

Ms. Leahy has made No Place for Hate® part of the culture at Tanglewood Middle School.  As she points out, No Place for Hate® “provides a vehicle for schools to be proactive and not reactive when addressing social cruelty.” Students in history, English and advisory classrooms participate in activities to address bias, including The Ladder of Prejudice and the Pyramid of Hate. Students also work on cyber safety, and this year,   several participated in an ADL peer training that helped turn the students into young leaders who model acceptance and appreciation for diversity for the entire school.

Ms. Davis and her students created a concert entitled “Memoirs of a Mustang,” to allow students victimized by hate to have a platform to express themselves safely.  The concert was successful in creating awareness of how bigotry, bullying, exclusion and disrespect affects people. Ms. Davis says, “Allowing the students to be free to express themselves in a safe environment without bias was honestly one of the greatest gifts….Our concert was ground breaking..in that it opened up a dialogue of conversation among our administrators, bringing light to the fact that we as a school must do a better job or promoting respect for other’s differences.

The counselors will receive the Walter Kase Educator Excellence Award at the No Place for Hate® luncheon at Hotel Derek November 15.  Keynote speaker for the event is Barbara Coloroso, educator, consultant,  and author of five best-sellers, including The Bullied, the Bully, and the Not-So-Innocent Bystander, and Extraordinary Evil, an examination of three genocides.

For more information or to register for the luncheon, click here.