A surprise assembly was held earlier this week at Sterling Elementary as Principal Denise Kelly entered a full gym to the surprise announcement and celebration of being named the Alaska Association of Elementary School Principals National Distinguished Principal for 2022. She was nominated and selected by her fellow principals for this distinguished recognition through a statewide search process conducted by the Alaska Association of Elementary School Principals.
Principal Kelly spoke to KSRM about her background:
“I have been a principal and a district level administrator for special education for 20 years. It’s been quite a while. I was special education teacher. I’ve lived here in Alaska for 11 years in the Kenai Peninsula, worked at the school district office for three years before being selected for the principal here and I feel like we have such fabulous staff and families, and I still am not sure who nominated me for the award but I am very grateful and very honored that they did.”
Kelly spoke on what makes being a principal so special:
“Oh my goodness, there are so many wonderful things about being a principal. It’s the best job ever. It’s the best job I’ve had to be honest. The best job and best thing about Sterling is being able to welcome the kids in the morning and be the first one to call them by their name every morning and talk with them to see how their weekend went or their night went or even how their morning’s going and just have conversations and build relationships with the kids.”
Principal Kelly spoke on if kids should consider going into education as a career:
“You know, I think that there are a lot of reasons why kids would want to be teachers. I think that even with all of the things that have happened over the past couple of years with all of the challenges that we’ve had and difficulties we’ve had with COVID and funding and all of those things, I still think that kids who are really passionate about helping others would find great success and great pride in being a teacher even still.”
Kelly will travel to Washington D.C. in October 2022 for two days of activities planned to honor and bring recognition to the elementary administrators selected by their respective states.
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