Every spring, the CFSD Foundation recognizes educators whose work defines what it means to teach in the Catalina Foothills School District. This year, five have been selected for the Foundation's highest honors, and they will be celebrated at the annual Teacher of the Year event on May 3 at Hacienda del Sol. 

Amy Byroad | Theatre Arts | Catalina Foothills High School
Amy Byroad teaches the CTE Theatre program at Catalina Foothills High School, and if you've seen a CFHS production in recent years, you've seen her influence. Her advanced students don't just perform. They propose, direct, design, and stage four fully realized productions each semester. Student directors pitch their vision to the administration. Student designers interview for roles in costumes, lighting, sound, scenic design, and stage management. The class operates like a professional theatre company, and Ms. Byroad is the one who built it that way.
In 2023, Ms. Byroad took on the full scope of the program, acting and tech, introductory through advanced, and used the challenge as an opportunity to bring students together across disciplines. Seniors and returning students now mentor younger peers through every phase of production, from concept to curtain call.
One of the most meaningful chapters of Ms. Byroad's tenure has been her students' work to make theatre accessible to everyone. After learning that local professional shows were not always accessible to audience members with sensory and movement needs, Ms. Byroad and her advanced students researched how to create sensory-friendly performances. They consulted with a special educator, incorporated her feedback into their planning, and opened their final dress rehearsal as a free, sensory-friendly showing of Canterville Ghost with an earlier start time, adjusted lighting, a story outline in the program, and a parent-built accessibility ramp. The tradition has continued with every production since.
Ms. Byroad was recently awarded the Arts Hero recognition from ONMedia, and her students secretly gathered the nominations that led to it. As choreographer Sarah Merry wrote in her letter of support, Ms. Byroad leads with kindness, creativity, and an expansive knowledge base, and her students love her for it.

Kelly Sandeen | English Language Arts | Orange Grove Middle School
Kelly Sandeen has been teaching English for 23 years, and she'll be the first to tell you that middle schoolers are underestimated. At Orange Grove, where she teaches 7th and 8th grade ELA, Ms. Sandeen builds a classroom where every student, from the most reluctant reader to the most voracious, has a place and a voice.
Her signature unit centers on The Outsiders, and it's where her teaching philosophy comes into sharpest focus. Through a protocol called Thoughts, Questions, and Connections, students learn to drive their own discussions, moving from small-group conversations to whole-class dialogue that, by the end of the novel, they facilitate entirely on their own. As one student reflected during a discussion this year, the Greasers may not have much, but they have each other, a chosen family. That's the level of thinking Ms. Sandeen's classroom produces.
Her 7th graders also read Night and Before We Were Free, texts that ask students to wrestle with injustice, persecution, and the meaning of freedom. At the end of the year, students complete an indifference project in which they identify indifference in the world and determine how to combat it, a work that extends learning well beyond the classroom walls.
Beyond English, Ms. Sandeen co-chairs Orange Grove's Got Talent, the school's annual talent show that has become a beloved tradition. She and her colleague & co-chair, Ms. La Chance, welcome all performers, and the result is an evening where students cheer each other on, rally around a stumbling act, and come together on stage for a final bow. Principal Mark Rubin-Toles noted that Ms. Sandeen has also become one of the school's assembly emcees and that her willingness to take on a TikTok dance in front of 700 middle schoolers shows exactly what kind of community builder she is.

Angela Hill | English | Catalina Foothills High School
Angela Hill teaches English 12: War and Conflict and AP Seminar at Catalina Foothills High School, and she has spent 15 years creating a classroom where students learn to think critically about the world and their place in it. Her students don't arrive understanding the weight of war. She builds that understanding from the ground up.
The first text her seniors study is Sun Tzu's 

Dr. Mary Florek | Gifted Specialist | Sunrise Drive Elementary School
Dr. Mary Florek has spent 40 years in education, and her path to the gifted classroom at Sunrise Drive was far from typical. She is a registered nurse who worked in the newborn nursery, labor, and delivery unit before earning degrees in Elementary Education from Youngstown State, a master's from Fresno State, and a doctorate from Kent State. She has served as an elementary principal, gifted specialist, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Assistant Superintendent, and Superintendent. And she says her greatest joy has always come from working directly with children.
At Sunrise Drive and Canyon View, where she serves as Gifted Specialist for grades 3 through 5, Dr. Florek teaches ELA, science, social studies, and math with an approach built on the belief that learning must transfer to real life. Her defining unit is a 5th grade economics course in which students select a career, calculate their annual income using a 25% tax bracket, write checks, build a budget based on the lifestyle they want to live, and invest $10,000 in imaginary stock that they track for ten days. Students learn what she calls the Florek Money Management Rule: Spend, Save, Share. By the end of the unit, students are going home and asking their parents about investment portfolios, and some are giving their relatives financial advice.
When Dr. Florek arrived at Sunrise Drive, she collaborated with district leaders and others to undertake a comprehensive reorganization of the gifted program, aligning curriculum, testing procedures, and communication systems, and compiled everything into a digital gifted handbook that remains the program's central guide. She also wrote grants funded by the Sunrise Drive FFO and the Tucson Rotary to purchase digital microscopes now shared across classrooms schoolwide, created "I Am BORED!" summer enrichment packets for extended math students, and established a Gifted Parent Advisory Council.
The Bandopadhay family, whose daughter Ishwari was shy and anxious about entering school during COVID, described how Dr. Florek video-chatted with Isha before testing day, personally met her at the door, and helped ease her fears. Today, Isha is a confident student council secretary, an American Heart Association Heart Hero, and an accomplished singer and dancer. As one of Dr. Florek's students once told her, when teachers love teaching, that teacher inspires students to love learning.

Britney Griffith | School Counselor | Esperero Canyon Middle School
Britney Griffith was named Arizona School Counselor of the Year in 2024, and the work behind that recognition shows up every day at Esperero Canyon Middle School. She is a counselor who believes that every student deserves access to the school counseling program, and she has built the systems to back it up.
When Ms. Griffith arrived at Esperero Canyon in 2022, she noticed an unused room near the student services area. She saw an opportunity. Working with her co-counselor and principal, she secured a grant for furnishings, partnered with the school's Family/Faculty Organization on a DonorsChoose campaign, and transformed the space into the Counseling Canyon, a dedicated center where students regulate their emotions, learn coping skills, and receive support in small groups and individually. The FFO president made a wall decal for the doorway, and a "Coffee with the Counselors" grand opening introduced families to the space. Since 2023, 119 students have participated in small group counseling in the Counseling Canyon. In the 2024-2025 school year alone, the space hosted 94 class periods, 60 small group sessions, and more than 50 parent meetings.
Ms. Griffith's classroom lessons follow the ASCA National Model. At ECMS, counselors spend one day per week dedicated to a specific grade level, with all three grades receiving monthly 50-minute lessons. Her unit on "Rude vs. Mean vs. Bullying" teaches students to identify, respond to, and report bullying using the 3 R's and an S: Recognize, Respond, Report, and Support. Her 6th grade lesson on rumors and gossip uses the game of Telephone as an activator and ends with a reading of Mr. Peabody's Apples that leaves students, in her words, speechless and contemplative. Every student writes a commitment on their way out the door.
As a 504 Accommodation Plan Case Manager, Ms. Griffith uses those meetings not just for compliance but to develop student self-advocacy. Teachers have reported that students who once needed reminders about their accommodations now request them independently, a shift from being helped to helping themselves.
Ms. Griffith serves on the Board of Directors for the Arizona School Counselors Association, chairs its Advocacy Committee, co-developed the CFSD Middle School Counselor Mentor Outline, serves as Secretary of the Catalina Foothills Education Association, and presented on advocacy at the ASCA national conference in July 2025. Parent Patricia Garbarino, whose three daughters have all had Ms. Griffith as their counselor, wrote that it is because of Ms. Griffith's ongoing attention and support that all three of her girls are thriving in middle school.