Carman McBride weaved through the teachers and students at Don Roberts Elementary to snap photos of Thursday's school assembly.
The Texarkana native sat among the hundreds of students at the Little Rock elementary school, who slowly grew quiet as Principal Barbara Anderson approached the podium. One by one, speakers moved to the front, making revelations about the reason for the gathering and finally noting that one of the school's educators would receive the prestigious Milken Educator Award.
State Education Commissioner Tony Wood then pulled three students up, asking them to read along with him the print on the card: "Ms. McBride, could you please come forward?"
McBride joined more than 2,600 educators nationwide -- including more than 70 Arkansas teachers -- to have received the award. This year, 35 educators nationwide received the award, said Gary Stark, president and chief executive officer of the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching.
With the designation, McBride will receive a $25,000 check from the Milken Family Foundation, which began as a way to honor top educators. A blue-ribbon committee processes the names of mid-career educators with a good track records, said Stark, a representative for the foundation.
Students and fellow teachers whistled and cheered as McBride, an Environmental and Spatial Technology program facilitator, accepted the award. Several of her students and colleagues rushed to hug and congratulate her after the ceremony.
"I keep thinking of all the people this could have gone to at this school," McBride said. "It's an amazing thing to get to work here with such support and some amazing colleagues. I have 120 sweet babies, and we do projects to help the community. I love what I do. This is just icing on the cake."
The 29-year-old has worked as the school's EAST facilitator for two years, helping to build a phone application for the elementary school and to start a bank and a coffee shop at the school, she said. Students in third through fifth grades can apply to be a part of the program.
Before that, she taught fourth grade at the elementary school.
"She is such an outstanding teacher," said colleague Amy Braswell, a fourth-grade teacher at Roberts who received the Milken award as a teacher in Texarkana in 2002.
"She's here early and she stays late. She loves what she does."
McBride's award represents the "excellence within the school district," Little Rock School District interim Superintendent Dexter Suggs said. Suggs received the same award in 2007, when he was the principal at a middle school in Indianapolis.
McBride is one of many "more than deserving" teachers in the district, he said.
McBride had been at an EAST retreat at the Pulaski County Co-Op Extension on Thursday morning but drove back to take pictures of the ceremony, she said.
"As soon as they called my name, I don't usually shake, but I did today," she said. "It was just surreal."
Other Milken award recipients said during the ceremony Thursday how the award opened up opportunities for them.
Braswell said she served on several committees and worked with other teachers and school districts. She was appointed to the state's Commission for the Coordination of Educational Efforts, recently becoming its vice-chairman.
"[Carman] is the kind of teacher who is very easy to love," Braswell said. "She builds relationships [with her students] based on their strengths. She helps them develop skills they didn't even know they had."
Metro on 02/27/2015