CAPTION: Melissa Swaim teaching geometry to her students at Hutchinson High School in October, 2024. Swaim is the math department chair and a math teacher at Hutch High. CREDIT USD 308
By Emmie Boese
Hutchinson Public Schools announced their Kansas Teacher of the Year candidates this month. The district is allowed to nominate a secondary and elementary teacher candidate. This year’s candidates are Melissa Swaim and Tara Urban.
According to a press release from USD 308, The Kansas Teacher of the Year program’s purpose is to recognize exceptional teachers across the state. Candidates then participate in a thorough selection process. Swaim and Urban both said their passion for teaching comes from helping and seeing their students thrive.
“My favorite things are working with the kids,” Hutchinson High School math department chair and math teacher Melissa Swaim said. “That’s pretty much why I’ve been teaching for 23 years is there’s always the kids that you can touch and the kids that you can reach out to.”
Swaim has been teaching for 23 years. She has been the math department chair for seven years and has been a math teacher at Hutchinson High School for nine years. She started the first part of her teaching career in Derby.
“I feel that it is to be there to help them understand why the concept is important,” Swaim said. “I’m a math teacher and so a lot of the time kids don’t like math and so I try to make it fun when I can, which isn’t all the time.”
Swaim teaches geometry, honors geometry and college algebra. She said she gets asked often by students, “When am I going to use this?”
“That comes up a lot and sometimes it is hard to show them when but my favorite class to teach is geometry and I’ve really been teaching that class since I started teaching,” Swaim said. “So I really like showing them and giving them all the examples of when they are going to use it. Not just in careers but just everyday life. Home remodeling or anything that you are doing at home.”
Swaim said she sends her students out of the classroom sometimes as a strategy to apply math skills to real life.
“I send them out, out of my class and have them find specifics,” Swaim said. “Find out how tall the flag pole is outside that we might want to replace.”
Urban is a Communication and Social Skills Special Education teacher at Allen STEM Magnet School. She said teaching was not the original career path she chose to pursue.
“When my kiddos started school I started volunteering and I was pretty much at the school most of the week,” Urban said. “The principal at the time was like, ‘Hey would you be interested in starting our extended preschool program?’ And I thought, ‘Okay why not?’ I absolutely fell in love with teaching and went back and got my teaching license and then I took my first certified position over at Allen as a kindergarten teacher and taught kindergarten for four years. This will be my second year in the Communication and Social Skills room and I teach K-2.”
Urban said the main purpose of the class she teaches is to help young students improve communication with others. She said many of her students have an Autism diagnosis and are nonverbal or have limited oral communication.
“This year, some of the kids I have…five of them use augmented communication devices,” Urban said. “It has pictures on it and they can push a picture on it that says ‘I want chocolate milk’. So we’re teaching those kiddos to have a voice through using technology. We call it assistive technology.”
Urban also taught herself sign language so she could assist her students.
”Even some of my kiddos we use sign language with,” Urban said. “I am self-taught sign language so I’m not fluent but I can carry on a decent conversation or assist my kiddos that use sign language in my classroom.”
Urban and Swaim both said their favorite memories from teaching refer back to helping students accomplish a goal.
“I think my favorite memories are the special notes that you sometimes get,” Swaim said. “Sometimes students will make a card and they just want to share with you how you have helped them through tough times and when I get those again that doesn’t happen on a daily basis but when I do get those, that’s what keeps me going.”
Urban said her favorite memory is from the current school year.
“I’ve had one of my kiddos, this will be his second year with me, he is nonverbal and uses his AAC device for communication and he came up to me the other day and without prompting said, ‘Hi’ and that was the biggest thing,” Urban said. “He had me in tears because we work on those things and it just finally clicked with him and it just showed how much progress we have made. It was just one of those moments. I live for those moments because they make what I do, even the challenging days, worth it.”
Urban holds a master’s degree in Childhood Education Endorsement and English for Speakers of Other Languages and Endorsement. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology with a minor in psychology. She is also an assistant coach for Kid Wind for fourth-sixth graders at Allen is a part of the building leadership team and is a part of the Hutchinson Education Association.
Swaim holds a Bachelor’s degree in secondary education-mathematics and a Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction of Education.
More information about the Kansas Teacher of the Year program and the nomination process is available at ksde.org.
