ASHEVILLE — A history teacher at Asheville High School won a competitive statewide award for her work in public education.
Tracey Barrett, who teaches U.S. History and civics at Asheville High School, is the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History's North Carolina History Teacher of the Year. Barrett was honored for the award at an Asheville City Schools Board of Education meeting Aug. 10 by Tom Daugherty, a K-12 Social Studies education consultant for the Department of Public Instruction.
"I'm super honored, and happy any time social studies education is in any type of spotlight. It often is not, and I think it's so important and deserves to be prioritized by policy makers," Barrett told the Citizen Times Aug. 11. "I'm just always happy to be representing
history educators and why the work that we do really matters for students."
The coming school year will be Barrett's fifth year at Asheville High School and her 14th year of teaching in North Carolina. A native of Asheville and a former Asheville City Schools student, Barrett said she was inspired to become a teacher by her experience in Asheville's public school system.
"I think I really had this awareness as a high school student that my teachers were doing something really amazing," she said. "And I just wanted to be able to do what they could do, in terms of opening their students' minds and giving students more expansive critical thinking skills."
A graduate of Duke University's Master of Arts program for education, Barrett said that she taught in Durham for around a decade before returning to the area in 2022 to teach at Asheville High School.
"I teach in a department with people who taught me, who have stuck it out in public education for decades and are committed and skilled, just love what they do and are so good at it," she said. "... One of the things that made me want to come back to Asheville is seeing how the faculty of Asheville High has really endured through some really challenging times in public education. And I wanted to come be at a place where people stay."
Kara Fohner is the Public Safety Reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times. Email her at kfohner@usatodayco.com or call her at 980-241-8671.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville teacher named History Teacher of the Year for North Carolina
