Neighbor: Carlile is honored for her work at Knightsen Elementary

By Roni Gehlke
For the Contra Costa Times

When Kay Carlile first heard that she had been named Knightsen School District's teacher of the year she was surprised and honored to receive the award. Although she has worked with the district for many years she started working as a full time teacher in 2005.
Carlile first came to the district in 1997 watching over students as a yard duty worker. For many years she also worked as a substitute teacher, including taking over one teacher's class every Friday.
It wasn't until 2005 that she decided to work for her credential and teach full-time for the school district.
"In 2005 I spent half day teaching kindergarten and working on my credential," she said.
In 2006 Carlile was hired on full time, teaching a combination classroom that was set up to teach kindergartners and first-graders. During the past few years she has been working on a character program. The program is devised to help teach children good character traits starting at a young age.
"Most schools have a character program like this of some kind," she said. "It kind of went away for a while, but it is needed more and more now. A program like this needs to be in the kids' language."
Carlile studied a program called "The Leader in Me" through UC San Diego. The program features "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People." Carlile said essentially the idea is to help students develop skills and self-confidence to succeed as leaders in the 21st century. By doing that it decreases discipline referrals, teaches and develops character and leadership, improves academic achievement and raises levels of accountability.
Carlile said that she loves working with children this age and seeing the changes they make in just one year.
"When these children come to me they don't really even know how to hold a book," she said. "By the end of the year they are reading and seeing that is exciting."
Carlile raised her own two boys, who are now off at college. She worked in the Knightsen 4-H with her sons and was a leader and camp director for two years.
Now that her children are grown and out of the house, she feels she is starting a new stage in her life and she is working on ideas of what to do next.
"It's an odd feeling not having them in the house all the time anymore," she said.
In the meantime, she is enjoying the new school year and getting to know the new children who are now having their first experiences in elementary school.