Special education department head Meredith Grant won the Sleep First Teacher of the Month award Wednesday for outstanding teaching. Sleep First is a local mattress retailer company that highlights certain teachers throughout the year in the area.

“I very much enjoy being around the students that I have,” Grant said. “Every single day I can grow more as a teacher by making things in the classroom a little more creative and fun.”

They have a nomination process where anybody can go nominate a specific teacher they feel best fits in the school to be featured. This can be done through https://sleepfirstusa.com/pages/teach-first after a description of the teacher is submitted.

“Teachers do so much more than they are paid to do, and it is all because of all the love and passion while making a difference in students’ lives,” Clarissa Miranda, owner of Sleep First,  said. “This is the second year we have done this and our first time to award a teacher in Lindale.”

Employees at the company look through the submissions every month with the feedback of the teacher. The teacher is then selected from these submissions.

“I do think that she was deserving of this award,” Principal Jeremy Chilek said. “Coach Grant is an outstanding teacher who is also just a great individual and a good example of the things that we want in a teacher.”

Now that she is the Teacher of the Month, she is eligible to become Teacher of the Year. If that were to happen, she would win a Tempur-Pedic mattress.

“I would say that teaching is very rewarding in many aspects,” Grant said. “There are tough days that you may not feel like it is rewarding, but it always is in the long run because of the many kids that you are able to help grow as people.”