Dana Stanton, a business teacher at STMA High School, received the 2018 Teacher of Year award for the Crow River News. Stanton is in her fourth year teaching at the school, and she said her own high school business education teacher inspired her to choose this career.
“I really enjoyed her classes,” she said. “It’s true education and skills that students are always going to need, whether it’s in school and college or in their careers.”
In addition to teaching a variety of business classes, high school principal, Bob Driver, said Stanton also works as an advisor for the BPA (Business Professionals of America) program, which has 90 students currently involved. She also works as a liaison between teachers and the technology department.
“I want to congratulate Dana,” said high school principal, Bob Driver. “She does such a wonderful job for us. She works with the kids really well. It’s well-deserved.”
Stanton said she received her teaching license since 2003, but she first worked as a business consultant and then stayed home with her young children before beginning her teaching career. This is her fourth year at STMA High School.
Stanton said she feels extremely fortunate to work in the STMA school district, which she said has one of the largest business departments in the state. STMA’s business department has a total of 22 course offerings and five teachers. In comparison, she said a neighboring district has six business classes to choose from and two teachers.
“We have kids who come back here to visit quite often, and they say they feel very prepared from taking our classes because they have already learned a lot of the things other students in college are just trying to learn,” Stanton said. “A lot kids don’t get that, and then they need to teach themselves plus whatever else they are learning.”
Stanton said the school’s business department takes advice from business leaders at both the local and national level to get direction on which skills they should hone in on or which additional courses to offer. Next year the department will add an investments class and a business communications class, she said.
Stanton’s Reaction to her ‘Teacher of the Year’ Award
“I’m just still really surprised,” Stanton said with a laugh. “The students are truly my favorite part of working every day. I don’t feel like I’m the Teacher of the Year, but I’m really happy to get that feedback.
We have a lot of other staff here who are just as deserving, but truly it just comes down to having awesome students that I work with every day,” she added. “That makes it easy.”
The Crow River newspaper has given a Teacher of the Year award for the past eight years, where readers select the winner by voting on a paper ballot or online.