PETERSBURG, Va. -- After teaching for 30 years in a Kindergarten classroom, Dorothy Patterson was named the 2022 Petersburg City Public Schools Teacher of the Year.
School leaders surprised Patterson with a billboard on Interstate 95 that announced the news.
"I’m just excited. It’s a great honor," Patterson said when her blindfold came off and she saw the billboard announcing her win.
The Walnut Hill Elementary School teacher said she believed love was the key to teaching.
"She’s been giving her all to all the students in Petersburg City Schools," Walnut Hill principal Mandelia Fisher said. “As soon as you walk into that classroom, that love, that engagement into the classroom and she moves around like no other teacher I’ve seen in the building, moving around and helping the students.”
Patterson said in order to be a good teacher, you have to love what you’re doing.
"If you don’t have a love for it, it’s no need getting into it," she said.
Patterson became a Kindergarten teacher 30 years ago when her daughter enrolled in Kindergarten.
“I can work with her and teach students all at the same time," she said about that decision to teach. “When you first get them, some of them can’t write their names, they don’t know any letters in the alphabet, but when you start working with them and when that little light bulb comes on and you see the smiles on those faces, that’s just rewarding, and it lets me know as a teacher, I have done my job.”
Patterson is not ready to talk about retirement. She said she still loves her job and her students.
