On Feb. 20, Michael Thompson (staff) entered the America’s Favorite Teacher competition. Thompson is a social studies teacher, the Student Council adviser, a football coach and the Knowledge Bowl head coach.
“It’s a competition involving teachers of all levels across the United States, where they have people in their communities … vote for them,” Thompson said.
This competition is to fundraise for the Planetary Society.
“You can, like, pay to get extra votes and then the money goes towards a nonprofit organization,” Leah Bacon (12) said. Bacon is the co-executive president of Student Council.
Every day people get one free vote for their selected teacher; then if they want more votes, they pay a varying amounts of money for votes.
There are many awards for the teacher that wins the competition.
“The winning teacher gets $25,000, a trip for two to Hawaii, a piece in reader’s digest … and the school … would earn a virtual assembly starring Bill Nye the Science guy,” Thompson said.
There are more benefits than just the given awards for the competition.
“I feel like with Thompson winning something like this, like, shows (with) him being a coach as well … I feel like it kind of could open views and show Windsor as a school,” Lainey Suder (10), another Student Council representative, said.
During the application process there were a variety of tasks the teachers did, like submitting a picture and filling out a bio.
“One of the questions that they ask, ‘If you were to win the money, what would you do with it?’ I’m sure I have a very boring answer, a good portion of it would go back towards my students, just buying stuff for our classroom … the majority of it though would go towards the college fund for my son,” Thompson said.
Thompson has gotten all sorts of support from his community, students and his family.
“My wife … she’s my tag team partner in life and she’s my biggest cheerleader in anything that I do. I don’t think I could do any of this without her love and support. And then add Carter (his son) onto that, you feel like you can conquer the world when you have that much love and support,” Thompson said.
Many students have shown their support.
“He’s just a super humble person … He’s been an amazing leader for us … He likes to help others,” Bacon said.
He is a strong support system for many students.
“When I had like a rough day … Thompson was the one to be there and help me … He always allows opportunities or solutions to help students … He’s always there to be supportive and help out and just an amazing teacher,” Suder said.
Thompson encourages any teacher to also participate in this competition.
“It’s really flipping worth it … I really appreciate this opportunity, this process has been really cool … I’m just very thankful of all the support people have been giving,” Thompson said.
This competition has been meaningful to Thompson, regardless of his final standing.
“Whether I win this competition or not, that doesn’t matter … I’m trying not to get emotional thinking about it … It would be a validation that all the sacrifice, all the energy, the effort, is worth it,” Thompson said. He thinks it’s been amazing “seeing how willing this community … is to embrace this process and help one little social studies teacher.”
This is the voting schedule for the competition:
- Top 20: Feb. 24 – March 6
- Top 15: March 6 – March 13
- Top 10: March 13 – March 20
- Top 5: March 20 – March 27
- Group Finals: March 27 – April 3
- Wildcard Round: April 4 – April 6
- Quarterfinals: April 7 – April 17
- Semifinals: April 18 – April 24
- Finals: April 25 – May 1
The winner is expected to be announced at the end of May. People can vote for Thompson here.
