Excellent Educators is a WAVY-TV 10 initiative to celebrate local teachers who have gone above and beyond for their students and communities during the last academic year. These Excellent Educators were nominated by their school divisions. Congratulations to these educators for all of their hard work and accomplishments!

Name: Karol Matthews

Division: Norfolk Public Schools

Position: Health and physical education teacher at Ingleside Elementary School

What the school division said about this Excellent Educator: Karol Matthews has more than 20 years of experience working with Norfolk Public Schools. She believes her purpose in life is to serve and give back to our children by providing a quality learning experience every day. 

That quality learning experience starts with printed decorations in the gymnasium that help to improve the vocabulary and understanding of students’ knowledge on essential health-related topics. Matthews’ lessons are fun, exciting, and engaging. She actively participates in lesson activities to motivate students and model how fitness is a lifelong activity. Matthews creates fitness videos because she feels like students need to see her and not an unknown person leading the exercises. 

Matthews wants all students in Norfolk to have a quality learning experience and not just the students at her school. She agreed to serve as the team leader on a committee that created lesson plans for the entire year for teachers. She committed hours of her time beyond what was required to ensure that these lessons were engaging, aligned to curriculum standards, and rigorous.  She mentors new teachers and allows college students that are interested in teaching to observe her classes as part of their student teaching requirement. 

Going above and beyond the expectation is one of her qualities that makes her deserving of the WAVY-TV 10 Excellent Educator award.  The students, parents, and school personnel just love everything Matthews has done and continues to do for the Ingleside Elementary family. In the past, she would head the committee to coordinate a field day event as big as a carnival for all stakeholders. I can’t think of one person more deserving of this honor than Matthews. She is one of the best teachers to ever work for Norfolk Public Schools.