NEWPORT NEWS — On a recent Friday morning, Chanda Woods is teaching her sixth graders about prefixes and suffixes. She walks around answering questions and checks on her students’ progress.
In between academic check-ins, she gets personal.
“Are you making better choices now?” she asks one of the kids quietly once she is back at her desk, after helping him with a new vocabulary word. “You need to make the choices I know you can make.”
She gives him a fist bump before he goes back to his seat.
Last month, Woods was selected as the Region 2 Teacher of the Year, putting her in the running for the state title, which will be announced Monday. Region 2 has 16 divisions, including South Hampton Roads and Peninsula schools. The state Teacher of the Year will receive a $2,500 award from one of the program sponsors, the Allen & Allen law firm.
The Crittenden Middle School English teacher believes in the saying, “If you can’t reach them, you can’t teach them.” She has always tried reaching her kids and seeing past behavior challenges. Because, once upon a time, a teacher did the same for her.
“I am a teacher because of my seventh-grade English teacher,” Woods said.
Growing up, her mother struggled with substance abuse, and Woods spent time in foster homes. At school, she masked her worries with an attitude and a hard exterior.
But that teacher saw past the exterior.
“She didn’t see the disheveled, struggling student,” Woods said. “She chose to love me past that.”
When Woods was taken from her home that year, her teacher took her in.
“She imprinted on my life.”
After that, Woods knew she wanted to do the same for others. Woods and her sister — who also had influential educators — became teachers.
“We are just amazed at how fortunate we are and how blessed we are, because of where we came from, and how we get a chance to do what the teachers in our lives have done for us,” she said, “which is give us hope in a future.”
Woods has had the opportunity for 26 years — as a teacher in Newport News and the Bronx, New York, where she grew up.
Natia Smith, principal at Crittenden, said Woods has the two most important things to be a successful teacher: “She loves her kids, she loves her content.”
Woods is also a master at “activating” learning, she said.
“She really finds a way to get kids to make connections to the material so that they understand it and then can apply it.”
She does not doubt that Woods is a strong contender for the state title. ShaToni Jackson is also confident. Jackson is Woods’ colleague — she’s a special education teacher at Crittenden. Before that, she was her student.
Jackson first met Woods as an eighth grader at Huntington Middle School, where Woods taught before coming to Crittenden. Jackson said she had a difficult childhood, and Woods would sometimes take her and a group of students out on weekends — with their parents’ permission — to see a movie or get some food and just talk. She said having someone like Woods “pouring into me” meant a lot.
She sees that same energy at Crittenden, where Woods started a gardening club and takes students to the school’s courtyard to care for the plants and flowers.
“She puts so much time and energy into our students.”
Jackson said Woods also always has time for her colleagues, even if that means using her lunch break to help out or answer questions.
“She’s the first person in the building and she’s the last person out.”
Woods said she has always thought of her students as her children. She’s still in touch with some of the first, who are now in their mid-30s. She’s also still in touch with that influential seventh-grade teacher.
Woods is humbled by the recognition as the Region 2 Teacher of the Year and still has a hard time believing it.
“It feels like I’m living somebody else’s life.”
Nour Habib, nour.habib@virginiamedia.com