CLEVELAND — Here at News 5, we want to honor teachers making a difference in Northeast Ohio with a back-to-school surprise! We have partnered with Preston Kia to give one grand prize winner a new 2023 Kia EV6.
For the last few weeks, we have been asking you to nominate a deserving teacher you think should win this back-to-school surprise.
And boy did you deliver! We received nearly 200 submissions, and on Friday morning, we introduced you to the first of our four finalists.
Cleveland Central Catholic High School hits it out of the park with math teacher and baseball coach Sebastian Jenkins on their team. News 5’s Danita Harris caught up with him before the start of the school year to talk about his equation for effective teaching.
She asked Sebastian about one of the four criteria we looked at for our back-to-school surprise teacher giveaway: “How are you instilling a love of learning into your students?”
“Taking the tricks and the lessons learned from different other teachers that are older than me,” he said. "Also, the life lessons that I've learned, and just trying to instill them into the kids - even the ones that they say are bad, those are the ones I love the most."
Sebastian is known for going above and beyond to help his students — another one of our criteria — and the people around him have noticed.
“As long as I've known him, he's always just been a very compassionate and a driven young man,” said Jayme Thrash, one of several people who nominated Sebastian for our teacher surprise. It’s an honor she says he deserves.
“It's, it's just a constant thing with him, and, if he sees an opportunity to help them, he steps in and does it — always,” she said.
“I feel like I'm doing it out of love and out of care,” Sebastian said. “If a student is going through something outside of here, just making sure that I go and have that conversation with them so they will be able to make it through the day."
The third criterion for our teacher surprise, which Danita asked Sebastian: “What are some examples that show your love of your profession, the desire, determination, and diligence to help outside of your normal teacher responsibilities?”
“I work with Cleveland Muni. I'm also in a lot of different programs and different mentorships, also working through my church as well,” he answered. “First and foremost, I think that's God's way. And kind of like my role in life to be here is to impact lives and to impact a younger generation."
We still have three more finalists to be announced. One deserving teacher will win a 2023 Kia EV6 from Preston Kia, and there will be other cash prizes for finalists.
The winners will be revealed on Sept. 12.
Keep watching Good Morning Cleveland and check the Back to School section of our website as we highlight the other finalists.
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