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Karen Darroch, a technology coach for Hoover City Schools, reacts to being informed that she has been chosen as the district's 2018-19 Elementary Teacher of the Year as she works with first-graders at Greystone Elementary School in Hoover, Alabama, on Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018.
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Karen Darroch, a technology coach for Hoover City Schools, has been chosen as Hoover's 2018-19 Elementary Teacher of the Year. She is the technology coach at Bluff Park, Deer Valley and Greystone elementary schools.
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Karen Darroch, a technology coach for Hoover City Schools, at right, reacts to being informed that she has been chosen as the district's 2018-19 Elementary Teacher of the Year, on Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. At left is Stacey Stocks, the principal at Greystone Elementary School, one of three schools where Darroch works.
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Hoover school officials pose for a photo with technology coach Karen Darroch, second from left, after informing Darroch that she has been chosen as the school district's 2018-19 Elementary Teachr of the Year at Greystone Elementary School in Hoover, Alabama, on Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018. Others in the photo, from left, are Greystone Elementary Principal Stacey Stocks, Superintendent Kathy Murphy, Greystone Assistant Principal Sherita Williams and Autumm Jeter, director of curriculum and instruction.
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Hoover school officials pose for a photo with technology coach Karen Darroch, third from left on front row, after informing Darroch that she has been chosen as the school district's 2018-19 Elementary Teachr of the Year at Greystone Elementary School in Hoover, Alabama, on Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018.
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Hoover school officials surprise technology coach Karen Darroch with the news that she has been chosen as the district's 2018-19 Elementary Teacher of the Year at Greystone Elementary School in Hoover, Alabama, on Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018.
Hoover school officials this morning surprised Karen Darroch with the news that she has been chosen as the district’s Elementary Teacher of the Year.
Darroch is a technology coach at three elementary schools: Bluff Park, Deer Valley and Greystone.
This is her 12th year in education, after beginning her professional life as an accountant.
Darroch said she knew during her senior year in college at the University of Texas at Arlington that she had made a mistake in choosing accounting as her career, but her parents advised her to go ahead and finish her degree and said she could go back to school for education on her own dime.
After graduating college in 1990, she moved forward with an accounting career, working for AmSouth Mortgage, and later was controller for Ticketlink before it became Ticketmaster.
But the passion for education still burned within her, so when her son was 3 or 4, she went back to school and earned a master’s degree in elementary education from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2007.
“Growing up, all of my teachers encouraged me to be an educator, but I didn’t listen,” she said. Finally, “I realized that was my love.”
Darroch taught two years in the fourth grade at Prince of Peace Catholic School and in 2009 moved to Hoover City Schools. She taught four years at Green Valley Elementary and two years at Deer Valley Elementary, all in the fourth grade.
During that time, she was selected as one of two teachers to pilot a technology project for the entire district and often lent her expertise to other teachers across the district on how to integrate technology into their instruction.
In 2015, Darroch was tapped as a technology coach.
Kelli Lane, the technology integration coordinator for Hoover City Schools, said in a recommendation letter that Darroch has extensively researched how to integrate science, technology, engineering, math and computer science into elementary classrooms and ensures that teachers are well-prepared to meet new digital literacy and computer science standards.
She also collaborates with other technology coaches.
“When a barrier occurs for the technology team, it is Karen that researches, develops and tests potential solutions,” Lane wrote in her recommendation letter. “Her positive attitude is contagious and allows others to feel as though opportunities are endless. Karen sets the bar high for herself and the team. Her work ethic and initiative far exceed any expectations with Karen projecting what technology will be on the horizon in the years to come.”
Sara Carpenter, a fellow technology coach, said she often has attended professional development sessions led by Darroch because of her knowledge and skill at communicating effective practices. “She was approachable and kind but also had a way to encourage others to step out of their comfort zone,” Carpenter wrote in a recommendation letter.
Greystone Elementary Principal Stacey Stocks said Darroch is amazing. For those teachers who are less familiar with technology tools, Darroch keeps it simple and helps them advance at their own pace, and for those who already are familiar with technology, she pushes them to learn more advanced things, Stocks said.
“We could not do what we do without her,” Stocks said.
Darroch this morning said she is in shock at being selected as Hoover’s Elementary Teacher of the Year.
“I love what I do, and I feel so fortunate every day to work with such outstanding teachers,” she said.
And she loves the opportunities she has to work directly with the children, she said.
Recently, she has been helping first-graders research holiday traditions in other countries and create digital books in Adobe Spark to illustrate what they have learned.
Darroch said she likes a quote by William Butler Yeats: “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
“In education, it is important we light that fire, that passion, that spark for our students to wonder, to question, to create,” Darroch wrote in an answer to a question about her beliefs about teaching.
“Technology is a tool that can keep that flame going as long as it is used purposefully and screen time is balanced,” she wrote. “Otherwise, the flame can be extinguished. We want our students to go home excited about learning each day with an eternal flame.”
Darroch said she has lived in Hoover at least 21 years and had a son graduate from Hoover High School this past spring. She and her husband recently moved to Smith Lake, so she now commutes to work in Hoover.
