Maria Pryor was nominated for doing a fantastic job of keeping kids engaged and on track while juggling dual grades. The nomination also noted how she pushes the limits of the students and encouraging them to be more than they themselves believe they are capable. Pryor is a graduate of St. Mary’s and Centralia High School and earned her initial degree in Speech. After staying home with her kids, she returned to college to earn her Master’s degree and now in her 11th year at St. Mary’s she has no other place she wants to be. “All of our teachers here are extremely well versed in dual classes. We’ve had that for many years. I think we just accept the challenge that’s at hand and we do what’s best for both grades without losing anything. We combine where we can combine and where we need separate classes the teachers have it all worked out where they will have children working and then back and forth with those grades.” Pryor says St. Mary’s has been able to stay-in-school, but things are still different with COVID. “The biggest issues we have seen here come from the older grades not being able to interact as much with our younger grades. That’s the saddest part of it because they are so wonderful with the younger kids and the younger kids adore them so that’s been a challenge. But our students are amazing and they have risen to the challenge. We’ve been in school all year and they’ve had a terrific year.” Pryor says the students also did well last spring with Google Classroom and didn’t come back this year with a big learning gap. And as far as how she likes to challenge students. “Do not help them more than what I feel like they need to. I think a lot of the kids are afraid to fail and we all fail from time to time and that’s how we learn. So if they do fail at whatever task it is, then they learn from it and they grow.” The Principal at St. Mary’s Patti Williams says Pryor is a leader outside the classroom as well. “She fills in wherever possible. She’s a leader in our technology program. She and her husband were our Athletic Directors up until this year. He husband is the coach of our basketball team and they are leaders in our school. Really I don’t know what I would do without her.”