Charter school teacher named educator of the year

A high school humanities instructor has become the first charter school educator chosen as National Teacher of the Year. Sydney Chaffee teaches at the Codman Academy Charter Public School in Boston and won the Massachusetts Teacher of the Year award last year. Codman serves low-income students in inner-city Boston, and Chaffee’s principal praised her for consistently helping to prepare her students for high school academics. Her secret? She has an “intense belief” that students can do things they never thought they could, Principal Brendan O’Connell said. Chaffee said she doesn’t think she’s that different from other great teachers. “I think that one of the reasons I was selected was not because I stand out, but because I do a lot of the things a lot of great teachers do,” she said. “I work really hard to build relationships with students. That’s how we can build a foundation on which we can then push them to take risks and grow.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.