Lafayette High School Choir Director Holly Grefe is a finalist for the 2019 WorldStrides Teacher of the Year.
WorldStrides is a student travel company. This spring, the organization asked parents and students to tell them about the teachers who are stars in their community. More than 750 nominations came in.
Grefe is one of five finalists and was recently surprised with $1000.
She has been teaching choir for 24 years and has transformed countless lives.
Students and parents say Grefe’s classroom helps her teenage students develop confidence, take ownership over their talents, and graduate prepared to take on the world – whether or not their own path includes formal music practice.
Her parent nominator said, “Under Holly’s continual encouragement and unyielding expectations that each child accepts nothing less than the best of themselves, we see a group of children embrace their whole selves and recognize their unique gifts. Children transition from ‘I can’t’ to ‘I can and I will,’ and that is entirely the product of Holly Grefe’s unique ability to extract the last drop from each of her over 200 students.”
Friday afternoon, WorldStrides will name the Grand Prize winner.
Watch Grefe as she was surprised with the news and hear from her students in a video here. To see the top five finalists, click here.
