(April 29th, 2021 — Jersey City , NJ) 7th grader Victoria Rich won Applebee’s 5th Annual Above and “BEE”yond Teacher Essay Contest with her piece on English language arts teacher, Ms. Amy Garrett.
“This was such a nice surprise and wonderful news! I am so proud of Victoria and honored that she chose me!” Ms. Amy Garrett shared.
The contest recognizes top teachers as nominated by their students with a sponsorship check of $500 for the teacher to use towards their classroom and an end-of-the-year class party. The contest was offered at Applebee’s across 13 counties in New Jersey.
To nominate a teacher and enter the contest, students had to submit an essay in-person at their local Applebee’s explaining why their teacher deserves to be Applebee’s “Teacher of the Year.”
Principal Allyson Krone shared, “we are so proud of Victoria for taking the imitative to enter this contest and spending the time to write the essay. Ms. Garrett is an integral part of the Explore family, so we were not surprised to find out Victoria wrote this essay and that it was a chosen winner.”
In her essay Victoria wrote, “Ms. Garrett is very deserving of this award. She has thought of every possible way to make learning fun and interesting. She never gives up on her students and pushes them as far as she can. You can tell that she wants the best for us and loves her job. She will stop at nothing to create lessons that will intrigue every single student. She knows how to hold a virtual class, how to make the best lessons, and how to make sure we are learning and retaining all of the information we need to be.”
