A pair of Huntington County Community School Corporation administrators were recognized at Monday night’s Board of School Trustees meeting, as Superintendent Chad Daugherty received the Candice Dodson EdTech Trailblazer Award from the Indiana CTO Council, while Career and Technical Education Director Tiffanney Drummond was honored with a House Resolution by the Indiana General Assembly.
The Candice Dodson EdTech Trailblazer Award is named in honor of one of Indiana’s most prolific education technology innovators, Candice Dodson. Dodson started what is now known as Indiana’s eLearning Day program, a critical component of helping Indiana schools navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.
In attendance at the board meeting to present Daugherty with the award were Indiana CTO Council Treasurer Bill Stein and Indiana CTO Council Chair Dan Layton.
“We are pleased to partner with the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents to provide the Indiana Candice Dodson EdTech Trailblazer Award,” Layton said. “The award honors a superintendent who has promoted and supported innovative uses of technology in their district and helped others do the same. We are honored to commend one of Indiana’s most innovative leaders, promote the profession and encourage innovative uses of technology for student learning.”
Layton also shared words from the nomination, which spoke to Daugherty’s commitment to developing HCCSC’s virtual learning format beginning in 2018.
“Mr. Daugherty is viewed as a visionary for his professional plan to bring eLearning to Huntington County Schools,” reads the nomination. “Mr. Daugherty was the Assistant Superintendent back in 2018 when his plan to bring eLearning to HCCSC first began. His plan included taking an entire school year and several practice days to bring the district up to speed with this new instructional opportunity. Mr. Daugherty did not just want to satisfy what was required by the state; he wanted a professional eLearning model that would maintain the instructional quality of what was currently being offered in the schools. In addition, Mr. Daugherty focused all of the district resources to train every teacher in the use of the eLearning tools and skills they would need to create a rigorous instructional environment that would compare to what the students would receive in person. This created tremendous buy-in and support from the district faculty and staff. The long story short is that his vision and follow-through as superintendent enabled HCCSC to seamlessly transition to remote learning in 2020 and in continually improving the instructional offerings throughout the COVID pandemic. HCCSC now has remote learning thriving at all levels of the school district. This all was made possible by his vision, professional implementation and follow-through starting back in 2018.”
Drummond’s honor was presented by Indiana State Representative Dan Leonard, who requested and sponsored the resolution to honor Drummond for her work in educating and serving Huntington County.
“Occasionally, there’s someone who just kind of stands out in different areas of education,” Representative Leonard said while honoring Drummond. “We try to honor those people at the State House. This year with COVID, we were not able to bring people to the State House to honor them and show them our appreciation. And so, this is one of the great things I get to do as a State Representative, unlike some of the other things that go on and I hear about.”
The resolution highlighted Drummond’s role in expanding the Huntington North CTE program, expanding the Huntington County Community Learning Center’s facility space, developing and maintaining relationships with community partners to offer adult educational programs and GED opportunities and serving the Huntington County community as a whole in the improvement of technical skills to further individuals’ career paths.
The Huntington North High School guidance department was also recognized at the board meeting, as the group was selected as a recipient of the Awards for Excellence for Outstanding Secondary CTE Career Coaching and Counseling Program by the Indiana Governor’s Workforce Cabinet. Just three guidance departments across Indiana were selected as awardees.
Huntington North’s guidance counselors traveled to Indianapolis on May 12 for the Awards for Excellence recognition program at the Indiana State House and Indiana Government Center – South Indianapolis to be recognized. Honored were Drummond, guidance counselors Chris Campbell, Taylor Herendeen, Doug Hinthorn, Stephanie Rodgers and Elaine Willour and Huntington North Principal Rief Gilg.