A look at Employee of the Year, Nicole Borowy

Nicky Borowy, the Helen Mitteer Employee of the Year award winner and Laura Whitaker, SAEF staff representative. Photo credit: Jenny Hammerberg

by Laura Whitaker

This year’s recipient of the Helen Mitteer Employee of the Year was awarded to Special Education teacher, Nicole Borowy. Nicky has been a teacher in the Stockbridge Community School district for 20 years, but that is hard to believe if you know her. She has an abundance of energy that she uses to work with students who are struggling in school; not just in academics, but socially, emotionally, and behaviorally.

Nicky goes beyond dedication with her students. She finds ways to build lifelong relationships with her students and parents. Relationships, to Nicky, do not begin and end with the classroom and school year, or with school bells and summer vacation. She can be seen taking kids to movies in the summer for their birthdays and out to ice cream.

She creates lasting connections and stays in contact as students reach out to her to celebrate high school, college and career victories, marriages, and their own children.

“I have great relationships with my parents and students, which also helps make my job easier,” Nicky said. “Working in the Resource Room gave me an opportunity to get out of my comfort zone, and I quickly realized that I loved working with these students.”

Outside the classroom this past January, Nicky and her staff created a coffee cart they take around to staff members on Wednesdays. They received the coffee donation from McDonald’s and doughnuts from Gee Farms. Operating the cart provides students the opportunity to work on real life skills and learn to interact with the adults as well as counting money and having to make change.

It is not just the students she impacts, but the staff as well. She is the type of educator who makes a person want to be better at her job. She has a spirit that makes kids truly believe they can be successful. She is creative in her ideas and understands that all students are unique and special, and she does everything she can to pinpoint exactly what will work for them.

Nicky will be the first to say that she could not do what she does alone, and she credits the unparalleled help of her program’s paraprofessionals: Lynn Balkus, Robin Tekieli, and Amy Liddy. They are Nicky’s support throughout good and bad days, including the movie and ice cream trips. The team takes their roles as superheroes seriously with Lynn as Wonder Woman, Robin as Batgirl, and Amy as Supergirl. Nicky is known to her students as Commissioner Borowy.

The remembrance speech for the Helen Mitteer award, written by the Mitteer family, stated, “Helen Mitteer’s dedication to Stockbridge Schools is now perpetuated by providing financial support to those employees who reflect her unselfish commitment to the students of Stockbridge Schools.”

As the awardee, Nicky will be granted $1,500 to use for her students in her Superhero program. When told, she immediately stated, “I know exactly what I’m going to get my class!”

The Stockbridge Community School District is a great place to be a teacher and a student, and is made even better with educators like Nicky.