Lehman MSD Teacher of the Year

Lehman MSD Teacher of the Year

MJHS math teacher, basketball coach recognized

Marion School District Marion Junior High School math teacher and girls basketball coach, Sara Lehman, has been named the district’s Teacher of the Year.

She graduated from Jonesboro High School and was an honor graduate of Williams Baptist College, where she attended on a four-year basketball scholarship.

Her love of math guided her toward the teaching profession.

“I love kids and love to help kids,” she said. “As a math teacher, I see students struggle with math. I want to get them to love and understand math.

There are so many steps that if they don’t get one, they quit. It is the best seeing kids actually learn something, seeing that light go on when they get it.”

She has been a teacher for nine years, all of them at Marion. Her introduction to MJHS has a humorous angle.

“I was working at Sylvan Learning Centers and Mr.

(John) Heath called looking for a math teacher,” Lehman said. “I walked into the junior high office and told them I was here to see Mr. Heath. He thought I was a student and told me to go to the counselor’s office and get my schedule.”

When the confusion cleared, Lehman said she was hired that day.

Her greatest satisfaction and challenge in teaching is “getting to kids who don’t want to do the work. I want them to put the effort into what they are doing and not take the easy way out,” she said. “I show them that someone actually cares about them.” Lehman has earned 18 hours toward her Master’s Degree and will resume that pursuit soon when she

returns to Westside High School in Jonesboro in the fall where she will be the Math and Algebra I teacher.

By Mike Douglas