Shotkus receives Education Service Award

Homewood’s Education Advisory Committee awarded Deborah Shotkus the Education Service Award during the June Board of Education meeting.

The Educational Service Award is awarded on an annual basis to an individual or organization that has committed extraordinary time and/or resources to the schools and students of the Homewood school system. 

Shotkus is a retired teacher who volunteers at Shades Cahaba Elementary School several days each week, spending time with each first-grade student throughout the year. She tracks student progress and invests in each child. The teachers, students and parents adore her. 

 “Over the period of three years, she has worked with every single first-grade student at one time or another,” said Allison Woods, SCE first-grade teacher. “She is flexible with the requests the first-grade teachers make and always gives 110 percent. She even encourages us as the first-grade teachers. The students she tutors love her and beg to have a turn to work with her. It is clear to anyone she talks to that she genuinely loves and cares for every student.” 

Former SCE first-grade teacher and current parent Betsy Crimi also praised Shotkus.

“She knows these kids,” Crimi said. “She worries about their progress and their well-being. She checks in with each of us as their teachers to ensure that she is supporting and enhancing what we are teaching. Our first graders love Mrs. Shotkus. They beg to have their turns with her. They long to share all of their work and their daily news with her. Mrs. Shotkus is a selfless, reliable resource to some of our youngest, precious students. And she has worked for three years now to help us help our first graders reach their unique potential.”