TALLADEGA COUNTY — Teachers can receive rewards for outstanding performances just as well as students.

Winterboro High School teacher Kim Knight’s dedication to her work and her students earned her the Outstanding New Career and Technical Teacher Award by the Alabama Association for Career and Technical Education.

Knight received the award last month at “Pathways to Success,” the Alabama Career and Technical Education Professional Development Conference in Birmingham.

Knight teaches business and marketing education to grades 7 through 12 and is the site coordinator for the Business and Marketing Academy at WHS.

She teaches one of the state’s highest-ranked career technology programs and is heavily involved with the school’s Future Business Leaders of America, which she helped earn a ranking among the top 10 of such programs in Alabama. She is also an approved course facilitator for Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators & Students Statewide.

Knight said she takes pride in giving her students, many of whom have limited outside exposure to business or technology, every opportunity to make these aspects parts of their lives.

“So many of the students here need exposure to practical skills. I use any kind of technology I can to give them more experience and more knowledge. It enhances their education, helps get them ready to move up in life,” Knight said.

The award is meant to serve as encouragement for teachers who have recently entered the profession to continue their careers as educators. It is given to teachers who show a commitment over and beyond what is required just to get the kids a passing grade.

Knight said the students are indeed her motivation to keep teaching.

“I love getting to know new students every year,” she said.

AACTE guidelines state that to receive the award, teachers must show professional dedication to their educational careers and make significant contributions to innovative student programs. Nominees must have taught between three and five years and be employed full-time in a career and technical educational program other than at the baccalaureate level.

However, nominees may be into their sixth year as teachers at the time of their application. This qualified Knight, as she is in her sixth year at WHS.

Knight embodies the other criteria as well. At WHS, she helped initiate the school’s 21st Century Skills Initiative to teach students fundamental and economic learning tools in more advanced classrooms. She’s brought local and state education programs into her classroom. She’s has even served as a mentor to other new teachers.

While at WHS, she helped secure a $60,000 grant from the Alabama State Department of Education to establish the school’s Business and Marketing Academy.

Besides this, she’s worked in conjunction with Blue Cross Blue Shield, First National Bank of Talladega, ABC 33/40, Alabama Industrial Development and other companies.

Knight’s been a member of AACTE since 2005.

Knight’s commitment that led to her award went beyond the school walls. She was proud to see two of her students compete in a national FBLA competition in Anaheim, Calf. They were there to compete in the electronic career portfolio and digital video production categories. Knight was even prouder when both of them placed second in the state, one student in each category, thereby qualifying them both to advance to the national level competition.

“You can teach in a classroom all day, but when you see them excel at a national level, you really get to see what they know,” said Knight.

Knight also said she had 11 of her students place in the top 25th percentile in the nation in the U.S. Treasury Departments’ Financial Literacy Challenge.

“Seeing your students show what they can do like that shows us that we’re providing excellent education even if us or the student are coming from an economically-challenged background,” she said.

“You know you’re delivering when your students exceed,” she said.

Knight was nominated for the award by Sandra Champion, who is the Career Technical Advisor for Talladega County Schools. Champion said Knight was an obvious choice for this award because she’s not only new in the profession, but cares about giving her students the best education for today’s economical world and will continue to do so for a long time to come.

“Knight is a phenomenal teacher…It’s more like she runs a business. Students have their own workstations, so they get so much more out of it,” Champion said.

Champion added that it’s more difficult for first-year teachers to be nominated because their dedications to long-term teaching career are unclear at that point. She said Knight’s quantity of experience was at the perfect level.