Colorado Teacher of the Year Wants to Mend Students Through Education

As a child, Janet Damon would set her teddy bears in a line and give each one a worksheet. She'd wait a few minutes, then collect and grade the papers, coaching the toys individually on the questions they got wrong.

Damon knew she would be an educator from a young age, though she saw widely differing paths for what kind of teacher she could be. There was her teacher in Fountain, whose face dropped when Damon entered the room and who often made her stay after class while her peers went to art and music. And there was Ms. Walsh in Louisiana, who complimented Damon's hand-crocheted dresses and paused teaching to celebrate when she used big words like "sinister."

Now a history teacher at Denver's DELTA High School, Damon's path is clear: "I always choose to be a Ms. Walsh," she says.

Damon was named the 2025 Colorado Teacher of the Year earlier this month, selected out of a record 1,300 community nominations for the award, according to the Colorado Department of Education. The honor makes Damon the public face of Colorado’s teachers, chosen to represent the state at a White House ceremony, a NASA space camp and as Colorado’s nominee for the National Teacher of the Year Award.

"It's a very surreal feeling," Damon says. "I see this as collectivist work. A lot of teachers do this and don't ever hear that they're doing such a great job, and that it means so much that our young people have a caring adult in their school who knows their name and is happy to see them every single day. All of that matters."

Damon says fostering relationships with her students is the most crucial part of driving engagement in the classroom. Her connection to her students is palpable even over the phone; during an interview with Westword on a school day, Damon frequently paused during her break period to greet students, settle an argument between two sisters, and reassure one student that water spilled on their pants was not noticeable.

In a letter submitted for the award application, Damon’s former student Katie Haro said Damon "saw," "understood" and "believed in” her, and "gave me the hope and strength to keep on chasing my dreams and goals."

"My responsibility as a teacher is to create very caring spaces where students feel seen, safe and loved," Damon says. "They need to know that you respect them as a thinker, that you care about their ideas. Showing them I care — not just through instructional means, but through the conversations we have and the space I create. ... If they pull up to my desk on my off period, my lunch period, I am available. I'm here. I'm present."

Damon extends this relationship-building to her students' families, as well. During classroom warmups, she'll ask students questions such as "Who's the strongest person you know?," "Who gives you the best advice?" or "Who's the best cook in your family?" Then, when she reaches out to a student's guardian down the line, she'll start the conversation by sharing the kind things their student has said about them in class.

"There's this underlying current for me of, how do we do the invisible mending of students' relationships with themselves, students' relationships with caregivers, students' impressions of their own potential?" she says.
DELTA High School is a pathway school within George Washington High School, serving students up to age twenty who have faced challenges that disrupted their education.

Damon uses her students' lived experiences to personalize their lessons, facilitating conversations about how they encounter the systems and structures they're learning about. Students can choose the topics they want to research and speak to one another about their firsthand accounts dealing with issues such as incarceration, gun violence, homelessness or cost of living.

By modeling respectful communication, Damon says her students are given the space to wrestle with nuanced topics and be open to changing their minds when met with new information.

“Janet is an educator who remains deeply student-centered and grounds her practice in the needs and experiences of the students she serves," says Colorado Education Commissioner Susana Córdova. "She creates a safe and supportive learning community in her classroom where students feel empowered to own and drive their own learning.”

Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero adds: "After more than 25 years in DPS, she continues to find innovative ways to teach her scholars, and they are better prepared for whatever is next after being in her classroom.”

Damon is a DPS alum, having graduated from Denver West High School in 1993. She technically started working for the district when she was still in high school, serving as a classroom sweeper and on the student board of education. But her career officially began in 1996, as a paraprofessional working in the library of East High School.

She's worked at DELTA for three years. In addition to teaching history, she is the school's culturally responsive education lead and a digital librarian.

Teacher of the Year adds to her long list of accolades, including the 2024 Extraordinary Teacher Award from Suntec Concrete, the 2023 African Americans Who are Making a Difference Award, the 2022 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award, the 2022 Inaugural Making Our Futures Brighter Award, and the 2020 Library Journal Mover and Shaker Award.

Throughout her extensive career, Damon says, she's seen fewer and fewer teachers spending decades in the field, noting that educators now burn out after five or ten years.

"There's this new culture that is very intense and has very high expectations but has very little recognition and acknowledgment of that extreme labor," Damon says. "There's a lot more emotional labor in teaching now. People need more emotional support; it's much more complex. That's why the relationships have to be such a cornerstone of the culture in the classroom."

Students are under more stress than ever before, she points out.

"Students are carrying so many adult issues on their shoulders. On their social media feeds, they are seeing wars, they are hearing of calamities. And they have fewer real-life, in-person connections."

Her advice for teachers and students alike is to prioritize their well-being and work on "cultivating an ecosystem where you can thrive."

For her part, Damon plans to put the $10,000 award money from Teacher of the Year toward cultivating that ecosystem in her classroom. She's starting by throwing a buffet party for her students to celebrate the end of their quarter. She also has a list of art supplies she plans to buy for new class projects.

"I want to pour back into the school and classroom that have poured into me," she says.

Damon knows the impact these kinds of efforts can have on a student. Thinking back to her time in school, she recalls a book Ms. Walsh gifted her called Autumn. Damon's father was in the military, so her family moved every few years growing up. But Damon always took the book with her to her new homes, and it helped keep her passion for education alive while dealing with other teachers who treated her less kindly.

"Every time we moved from place to place, I would unpack that book and I would remember her generosity of spirit and her love for me," Damon says. "Our kids and our young people deserve so much love and care, and our teachers deserve the same."