English teacher Kelly Boyd has been named as this year’s teacher of the year. Boyd was one of four finalists considered for the recognition, which included English teacher Kathryne Armstrong, orchestra teacher Alexander Kelly and math teacher Lauren Vento. 

Boyd is in her 24th year of teaching and has spent over half of her life at PA, including her three years as a student. She credits the origin of her desire to teach, along with her interest in English, to her time as a high school student–particularly receiving inspiration from her teachers. 

As a student, Boyd recalls how she mainly looked for “someone to treat me like a human” in her teachers. “My favorite way of taking class was being told to ‘read this, accomplish this, I’m not going to tell you how to do it, unless you have questions,’” says Boyd. “I liked finding my own way of accomplishing things.” 

This style of teaching Boyd grew to love was used by her English teacher Debra Larson, whose classroom was near where Boyd teaches today in the 200 hallway. “She was amazing,” explains Boyd. “She asked us questions and then she looked at us and waited for our answer and then interacted with whatever answer we had, so I felt like I was listened to in a way that I had never experienced before.” 

Boyd describes that it was Larson’s class that made her want to become an English teacher. “I wanted to talk to my students like they were thinking humans, because I knew that [it] made all the difference for me,” said Boyd.

While attending Mary Washington University after high school, Boyd returned to PA during the final weeks of the high school year, sitting in on Larson’s class and interacting with her students. Then straight out of college, Boyd was a student teacher with Larson as her mentor, and has taught at PA ever since. 

With the help of literary theory classes in college, Boyd never strayed from her interest in teaching English. “English is life,” Boyd explains. “Anything we read is about us.” Boyd elaborates on this idea, referencing reader-response criticism and phenomenology in literature, which focus on the reader’s interaction with a text and how meaning is derived from that connection, helping the reader learn about themselves along with messages from the author. 

Boyd continues to apply what she has learned to create her own style of teaching. “I also love Gestalt,” Boyd continues. “It’s the idea that we are more than the sum of our parts. The act of reading is something that makes the book more than it was before I picked it up. The act of discussing it in class with the students and our interactions with each other…makes the experience of reading more than it was with the book just sitting on the shelf.” For Boyd then, her students aren’t just students, they are “collaborators in meaning-making.” 

Outside the classroom itself, Boyd is very involved in the greater PA community. This year, Boyd has had a significant role in planning PA’s 70th anniversary celebrations, which included events around homecoming in October, and will continue in April with the Cavalier Carnival. 

To Boyd, getting involved in the school’s community is a no-brainer. “[PA] has made me who I am,” says Boyd. “Especially the relationships and the friendships I have with my colleagues and administrators…it’s a great blend of people here, it’s kind of a golden age of PA right now.” 

Because of this, Boyd encourages all students to make the most of the school community. “Whatever path you choose now in high school, club, sport, or ensemble, will give you experiences that prepare you for whatever life brings,” says Boyd. “You may make a lifetime friend or two, too. Let’s be the best Cavaliers we can be today so that we can have the best experiences possible wherever life takes us.”