BOUNTIFUL—Holbrook Elementary teacher Samantha Child was surprised at the end of the school year when a group of people from Bailey-Welling Orthodontics came into her sixth grade classroom holding cookies and pizza. Child was selected for the orthodontics’ “My Teacher Rocks” campaign the office holds annually. 

Teachers are chosen from nominations sent in by students and families. Every submission was delivered directly to the schools so the teachers could read the messages sent. 

“We’ve been celebrating the teacher appreciation week for quite a few years,” said Dr. Andrew Welling. “We’ve been going out and delivering cookies to south Davis County schools. For example last year we visited 42 schools and delivered 1,600 cookies. It’s just a fun way to say thank you. We love celebrating our educators. They mean so much to our community.”

Welling said last year they added on the My Teacher Rocks contest. “It’s so kids can nominate teachers who they think rocked and leave notes about why they appreciated their teacher and what they thought made their teacher amazing. We saw a tangible difference as we went out to the schools.”

Everyone was always appreciative of the cookies, he said. “But then every single nomination we would drop off at the school so the teachers could see the kind words that the students and parents were saying. We realized this was an area we wanted to focus on even more.”

The orthodontics office still does the cookies, said Welling. “We still do all those things so we can have a little something for everyone but we’ve just been trying to really encourage not only our own patients but we’ve reached out to the community and some of the citywide Facebook groups to say ‘hey if you want to share a kind note let us know.’”

Last year they selected two high school teachers, two junior high teachers and four elementary teachers, he said. “For the elementary students we do a pizza party and for all of the teachers we do a little personalized gift – a mug with their name on it and some gift cards and things like that.”

When the teacher walks in and all their students are in the lunch room just cheering for them and the teacher starts crying it’s clear how much it means to them, Welling said. “That’s important to us and that’s part of being a local small business and a family run business and part of the community. We feel blessed to be able to be a part of that. That’s kind of the 30,000 foot view of what it is and why we do it.”

When Welling and his staff delivered the cookies and pizza to Child’s class the kids were just as excited as Child was surprised. “It’s pretty special that you have one of the best teachers in all of south Davis County,” Welling told the kids. “Because of that we’ve got a little prize for her and we have some pizza for you guys.”

“I try to build a really strong classroom community where everyone feels safe here and everyone feels heard,” said Child as she accepted the award. “I want them to feel like they can share whatever it is they want to during class without being ridiculed.”

Child said at Holbrook the teachers are very fortunate. “We have a lot of parents who are super involved at this school and in the community. They’re always willing to volunteer and help out so I’m able to build relationships with them which I feel like helps a lot.”

“She is so nice,” said sixth grader Audrey Wait. “She makes everything motivating. Sometimes on Fridays in language arts will have to do grammar and she makes it so fun. She plays games with it. I feel like I can always talk to her about anything. That’s cool.”