CORBIN — Special to The Times-Tribune

Corbin Middle School science teacher Melissa “Missy” Evans has accepted a position with Knox County Schools.

Evans was hired to fill the vacancy left by the June retirement of Infinite Campus coordinator and ESS director Sharon Valentine. Evans will also have other duties, including a key role in the Knox County Schools’ Response-To-Intervention initiative that targets student academic needs.

“We are very excited to add Mrs. Evans and her expertise to our staff,” said Knox County School District Assistant Superintendent Marion Sowders. “She comes to us as an award-winning teacher with a very strong instructional background and expertise in teaching science. Mrs. Evans will be a natural fit for our district and complement the work going on.”

Evans taught at the Corbin school for the past 17 years and recently was recognized as the 2010 Middle School Teacher of the Year in Kentucky and as a recipient of the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.

Evans, who is a lifelong resident of Heidrick and whose parents, Calvin and Patricia Johnson, were both Knox County educators, is excited about her new job.

“I love teaching,” she said during an interview on July 27, her second day on the job. “I would have been fine staying in the classroom until I retired, but I just really enjoy helping other teachers and wanted to branch out into a curriculum position where I work directly with teachers and students in improving instruction in the classroom. I’ve always wanted to do that and was just waiting for the right job to open up.”

As for her initial impressions of the Knox County Schools, Evans said, “I was very impressed yesterday with Superintendent Hulett’s presentation on instructional rounds. I learned a lot. A lot of new programs are in Knox that I’m not familiar with, and everybody seems like they’re on the same page: their primary focus is for the students and to raise achievement. They’ve got a lot of things going here, and I think that they’re going to see results.”

Asked about her own recent awards, Evans said her application for the Presidential Award actually began in 2007 and continued in 2008.

“It involved a lot of work,” she recalled. “The theme was to choose something that’s difficult in science for students to learn and is difficult to teach, and just do a lot of work around that theme.”

Evans’ chosen theme was energy transformations and thermal equilibrium. She explained, “You know, if you touch something that is wool or fuzzy, it feels warm, but if you touch the metal on your chair, it feels cold.  Everything is at room temperature that is not an energy-producing object.  That’s a huge misconception for middle school kids, and it’s one that I felt was important to address.”

Evans’ students demonstrated that they understood the concept by exhibiting “dramatic increases in comprehension” at the end of the unit. However, during a pre-test, approximately 90 percent had failed to understand the concept.

Asked about her 2010 Middle School Teacher of Year Award, Evans said, “You have to be nominated, and if you choose to pursue the nomination, there are numerous questions you are asked, and you have to write essays.”

The Kentucky Department of the Education first narrowed down its nominations to the top 30, including 10 in each of the nomination categories. KDE then narrowed that list down to the top three teachers or finalists in each category.

At that point, a team from the state department visited the schools and watched the teachers teach a lesson, which was followed up by a long interview process. The KDE team then chose its top three winners, which included Evans.

At Corbin Middle School, Evans was well known as an advocate of the school’s environmental PRIDE club that won middle school campus of the year. She also helped build a wetland on the school’s campus and develop an outdoor classroom. In addition, she helped coach Corbin Middle School’s Science Olympiad Team, which has won five state championships. “It’s just an amazing program. I’d like to see that picked up here.”

Evans also has been director of the summer science camp in Corbin. “It’s a great program,” she said. “There are not a lot of academic opportunities over the summer…so we really built the science camp up and had 150 kids that would come for a week and learn about science.”

Melissa (Johnson) Evans grew up in Heidrick and attended Lay Elementary. Following her graduation from Knox Central High School in 1988, she earned the first of several degrees and educational certifications from Union College. These include her bachelors and masters in middle grade education, with an emphasis on science, her Rank I, and her supervisor of instruction certification.

Evans, who initially began her educational career teaching in the homebound program in the Knox County Schools before being hired by the Corbin Schools, comes from a family of educators. Her father, Calvin Johnson, was a principal at Lay School. Her mother, Patricia Johnson, taught at Flat Lick and Lay Elementary. Evans’ sister, Jennifer Gregory, lives in Girdler, Another sister, Melinda Pickle, is deceased.

Evans lives at Heidrick with her husband Pat, who is employed by Truseal Technologies.  The couple have two sons, including Seth who turns 14 in August and Cody who turns 12 in August.