Health Organization Selects Chesapeake’s Kim Collins For Teacher Of The Year

Chesapeake High School physical education and health teacher Kim Collins was honored in October by the Maryland Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (MAHPERD) as its 2017 teacher of the year.

The organization promotes healthy and active lifestyles through educational and community programs. Collins’ Anne Arundel County Public Schools physical education and health coordinator nominated her for the award.

“I was indeed surprised,” Collins admitted. “I am honored and humbled. … I work with some amazing teachers at Chesapeake and in our county that are just as deserving for this award. This is a reflection of the hard work that we all have put into making our classrooms a safe, supportive and fun place for the students to be.”

Collins has been at CHS for 10 years. She taught at George Cromwell Elementary and Ferndale Early Education Center during her first two years as an educator.

Today, Collins teaches physical education and health to students in grades nine through 12. For seven years, she coached soccer at Chesapeake — four of those years as the girls varsity coach. No longer coaching, she now serves as the Anne Arundel County District 5 representative for girls soccer. She is also the assistant athletic director at CHS.

“While I enjoyed teaching elementary school, I really like working with older kids,” Collins said. “I really like being able to do more advanced activities in PE with them, and I really love teaching health.”

Collins also enjoys collaborating with her CHS department colleagues and feels that she is part of a team that works well together. “We bounce ideas off each other and get new ideas,” Collins explained.

To be effective in the classroom, Collins works on building relationships with her students. “When you have mutual respect and understanding, the class is more exciting to them and they look forward to coming,” she said.

“Working with high school teens is always fun and eventful,” Collins noted. “The personalities that they have make each class different. I learn from them the value of being understanding. Each one of them comes from a different background and they learn so differently.” Collins structures lessons with every student in mind. She is also sure that if they are having fun in her class, students will retain the skills she is aiming to impart.

Collins strives to keep up to date with new teaching strategies. She has implemented AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) and project-based learning techniques. She enjoys the results and celebrating her students’ successes. “It is so rewarding to see former students and players of mine and talk to them about the successes in their lives,” she said. “It is also rewarding to hear students tell me that they used the skills I taught them in one of my classes in their real lives and how it worked!”

A native Marylander, Collins has a family biography rich in teaching and soccer coaching. “I grew up in Carroll County,” Collins said. “I went to South Carroll High School. My sister is a PE/health teacher at Liberty High School, and my brother is a tech ed teacher at South Carroll High School.”

All three siblings have coached soccer. “You could say teaching seems to run strong in our family,” Collins joked.

Collins’ husband is from Pasadena, and when the pair got married, they settled here. He graduated from Chesapeake and was the boys soccer coach at the school for 15 years (2001-2016).

Collins went to Salisbury University for undergraduate studies in physical education. She has a master’s degree in health, physical education and recreation from Emporia State University.