PEACH COUNTY, Ga. — Teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic offered new challenges for many educators. This year, Microsoft selected 75 teachers from nominations across the world to honor in their virtual Legacy Museum.
One of those is Peach County High School Gifted and Language Arts teacher, Angela Heath.
"It was very emotional for me because I started crying and the kids were screaming, and they were so excited and I was in shock because up until that minute, I didn't think it was a real thing," Heath said.
The district's Gifted Coordinator, Carmen Horton, submitted a 500-word essay for Heath's nomination.
"They've created a virtual museum and in that museum they selected the top 75 examples of perseverance and teacher appreciation during the pandemic," Horton said.
Heath found out she had an aggressive form of breast cancer in March 2012, by August 2012 she said she had a tumor the size of a baseball.
Over the last decade she still taught despite being in and out of remission.
When she came back in 2020, she had no choice but to work from home during the pandemic, even when students started phasing back in-person.
"I was, at that time, on a medication that I was not able to be around, it lowered all of my blood counts so I was extremely at-risk, so I could not," Heath said.
Even from home, Heath played a major role in helping teachers who had problems reaching students with limited access to internet and figuring out the grading systems across different platforms, which Horton believes is the reason why she stood out to Microsoft.
"Mrs. Heath's work, she didn't just address her needs and the needs of her students. She came to me and said, 'I've got solutions that will help the entire district,'" Horton said.
"Being able to come to work gave me a purpose and it gave me something to think about besides cancer and it gave me a chance to say, 'I have something I can share and as long as I'm able to share it, I want to be able to do that,'" Heath said.
She returned in-person to the classroom in March. She said she had a minor health issue recently, but as long as she feels well enough, she plans to keep teaching.
Visit Microsoft's Legacy Museum to read more about Heath's story.
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