GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) — For Justin Scarbro, Page High School has become home.
The Social Studies teacher came to the Guilford County school in 2006 right out of college and not only found his love for teaching but the love of his life: an art teacher named Ashley.
"I've always felt like I was the lucky one," says Scarbro. He says the relationships he has made at the school, have helped to make him the teacher he is today.
Last month when the school was called to an assembly, he felt like it was just a typical school-wide pep rally. He never thought the gathering would be all about him. The popular teacher had been named a Milken Educator Award winner. Called the "Oscars of Teaching" the award comes with $25,000!
"The absolute biggest surprise I've ever had in my entire life in the best way possible," he said. "The first thing I thought of is how there are a lot of people here who deserve credit for this. And they need to know that and they need to know how important they are to me sitting right here."
"All the people that have inspired me, all the people that have propped me up, all the people that have believed in me, all the people that have loved me, um, throughout this process and how much like this is an attribution to them," Scarbro continued.
He said it's the type of award that keeps teachers going.
"It's good for me, but it's good for Page. It's good for our community. It's good for the profession."
It is also good for his students, who always know they matter to him.
He keeps his classes moving and his students' attention. "It's easy to be passionate about the job when you feel like it's your pleasure. It's your joy. I don't think I could have that in a different job. It's easy to get up. It's easy to come to work. It's easy to laugh. It's easy to have a good time, 'cause that's naturally what teenage kids want to do."
"My goal is to give them the hope that my teachers gave me. Subconsciously mostly. I internalize that, as I go through my years of teaching, these are human beings and these human beings need hope. They need fuel to feed their dreams. They need energy and passion to keep them going on, you know, some Wednesday when it's cold and not so pleasant outside. And now I have kids of my own and it's kind of even easier to look at each one of these thinking that, you know, the way I feel about my son and daughter is the way their parents feel about them. And so it's kind of easy to pour a little extra dose of passion into it because that's what I would want to do for my kid."
As a Milken Educator, Scarbro will have access to a lot of networking, which he plans to use for his students and his school.
"I feel pretty strongly about two things. Public school and the teachers in public school. I feel very strongly about equity in education. That looks like lots of different things for lots of different groups of people. So wherever my voice can go to move the needle on support for public school and public school teachers and for equity in schools on behalf of every single group that deserves it, that's where I'll go. And that's what I'll do."
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