The North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching (NCCAT) honored Robert Ballard, Chapel Hill High School’s automotive teacher, as the runner-up for the Career and Technical Education (CTE) Teacher of the Year for 2022.
After being named the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools district CTE Teacher of the Year, Ballard qualified for the state-level recognition.
“I was honored to be a part of this great group of teachers, and I learned so much from them,” Ballard said. “This award will push me to try even harder, and it will help me to help my colleagues to grow a stronger and equitable learning community.”
Ballard works to provide alternative options to four-year college degree programs, which he believes are not accessible to all students. He has built working relationships with local community colleges to offer college credits for all four levels of the automotive program. He is also the first teacher in the state of North Carolina to offer pre-apprenticeship programs for college credit.
In his time at Chapel Hill High School, Ballard has worked to collaborate with Adobe, IT, math and special education teachers to integrate technology and coursework among the departments.
“Mr. Ballard does a really good job of giving us hands-on activities as often as possible,” sophomore Cy Steele-Cobb said. “We have a lot of certification stuff we have to do as a class requirement, but, outside of that, we’re always working on cars.”
Ballard said his classes focus on specialized education that caters to students individually. He hosts weekly check-ins with students and spends extra time on subjects and topics that they may struggle with.
Ballard said he takes pride in being able to tailor his course based on the needs of his students. The district’s CTE Professional Learning Community analyzed data and found a decrease in students’ English Language Arts scores. Ballard pushed to incorporate unit papers into CTE courses to emphasize the importance of literary skills while continuing to focus on automotive education.
“Each day in schools, CTE teachers inspire and guide students to important future careers and roles in society,” NCCAT Executive Director Brock Womble said. “Taking time to honor excellent CTE educators across our state through our program is important, as we are continually striving to elevate the teaching profession and emphasize the significance of the work they do every day.”
