Mechelle Dunlap is a special education teacher in the Conway Public School District. She is certified as a Special Education Instructional Specialist for pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. She is also certified as a reading specialist for pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade.

Mrs. Dunlap graduated with a BSE in Special Education Mildly Handicapped in December of 2001. She graduated with an MSE in Reading Specialist in 2008. In 2009, she completed the English as a Second Language Graduate Academy. Mrs. Dunlap has taught in the Conway Public School district for nineteen years, with one year teaching outside of the district in Pulaski County Special School District. She has served as a resource, inclusion, intervention, and indirect teacher during her career.

She has spent the last thirteen years teaching in resource, inclusion, intervention, and indirect settings to fifth through seventh graders. During this time, she attended professional conferences through the Council for Exceptional Children. She attended required professional development as well as additional professional development and training in a variety of areas. She has been trained in two Orton-Gillingham methods to better enable her to serve her students with dyslexia.

Mrs. Dunlap believes that all children can learn and deserve to be given the opportunity to learn. Teaching special education gives her the opportunity to work with students who have either fallen behind their peers or who are struggling to maintain performance at grade level. In her spare time, Mrs. Dunlap enjoys reading and traveling with her husband and four children.

Jennifer graduated with a BSE in Early Childhood Education from the University of Central Arkansas. Her first years of teaching were at Mayflower Elementary School, and she taught kindergarten for two and a half years. She returned to teaching twelve years later to Ruth Doyle Middle School, and she has been a fifth-grade math teacher for eight years.

You would be hard-pressed to find a single person at Ruth Doyle Middle School that doesn’t appreciate and adore Mrs. Erika Easley. I second the words of the faculty that nominated her. “Ericka is a beautiful ray of sunshine EVERY single day. She loves her students and goes above and beyond to ensure they succeed. She loves her job and goes out of her way to make others happy.”

In the first few moments of stepping into Mrs. Haynes’ classroom, you will get excited about math. Her enthusiasm while teaching is contagious to the students and anyone that observes her. She has a gift of relating concepts in math to something relevant in a middle-school aged student’s life. It is evident Mrs. Haynes genuinely cares about, connects with, and loves her students.