HENRICO COUNTY, Va. — A special education teacher at Chamberlayne Elementary School received a heartwarming surprise when she was selected as this year's CBS 6 Gives recipient.
Mrs. Madeline Hughes, who teaches an exceptional education class with students from kindergarten through fifth grade, thought she was being interviewed about back-to-school preparations.
Instead, she was surprised by CBS 6's GeNienne Samuels with recognition for her dedication to her students.
"I kind of fell into exceptional education, but I really love it, and I feel like as a team, especially here in our integrated services classroom, we have a lot of small wins all day long. And all of those small wins can seem really little, but for them, they're such big successes and that brings a lot of joy for our whole classroom team," Hughes said.
Samuels, who attended Chamberlayne Elementary as a student, returned to her alma mater to deliver the surprise.
"I am so excited because I literally have not been at this school since I think I graduated," Samuels said.
Hughes was nominated by her school administration for always going above and beyond for her students and colleagues. She has won the Christie Award at Chamberlayne (an award given annually) and was also a division-level finalist for the same award for another school year. Hughe also earned the Henrico County Supervisor Education recognition.
"You talk about this being an exceptional group of students, well, you are also a very exceptional teacher I've heard," Samuels told Hughes during the surprise. "And so I'm not really here to interview you about going back to school, I'm here to interview you because you were selected by your administration to be this year's CBS 6 Gives recipient."
Hughes received a gift card and classroom supplies from her Amazon wish list as part of the recognition.
"I really do love our Chamberlayne community," Hughes said.
Hughes was nominated by the school's principal, Charlie Goad, Jr. and school counselor, Lauren Lonnes.
"In addition to going above and beyond for each of her students every day, she is a positive and helpful coworker on our staff, as well as a dedicated mom of another Chamberlayne student. Her son is in 3rd grade here," Lonnes said.
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