This article is part of a series by The Vicksburg Post, in partnership with the Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber of Commerce, featuring each of the Educator of the Year nominees.

 

In a career in education that has spanned more than a dozen years, Shannon McGhee has moved from Texas to Louisiana, and now to Mississippi. For the past two years, McGhee has taught third-grade math at Vicksburg Intermediate School, continuing her passion for “empowering others.”

“As an educator, nothing feels more significant than your students understanding and applying what they know and learned,” McGhee said. “The overall goal is for my students to show growth in all areas. To improve overall achievement in my classroom, I encourage students to examine their data and set learning goals to help them achieve their growth.”

McGhee is a finalist for the Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber of Commerce’s Educator of the Year Award.

The Chamber will select and announce one elementary and one secondary teacher of the year on Feb. 17. The winner of each award will receive $1,000 from Ameristar Casino and the runner-up for each award will receive $500 from Mutual Credit Union.

McGhee received her bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies in 2009 from Prairie View A&M University.

She began her career in education as a kindergarten paraprofessional at Bilhartz Elementary in Dallas before moving on to teach pre-K and first grade at Rayville Elementary in Rayville, La. After Rayville, McGhee spent three years teaching at Tallulah Charter School in Tallulah before joining the staff at Vicksburg Intermediate.

“As an educator, I need to understand my students’ needs and what they need from their learning to make sure their knowledge can connect to the community and real-life situations,” McGhee said. “For example, teaching multiplication and division, I explained that by going to the grocery store and buying bulk items from the store, we could use multiplication and division to solve for the total.”