Girard native Reid earns district’s first “Oscar of Teaching”
GIRARD — Girard native and middle school and high school choral teacher Meredith Reid received a Milken Educator Award at an all-school assembly at Girard High School on Wednesday morning.
Students, colleagues and others attended the event that was unknown to Reid until the announcement in the assembly.
Hailed as the Oscar of teaching, the national honor created by philanthropist and education visionary Lowell Milken recognizes exceptional educators for their dedication to excellence in education and leadership. It includes an unrestricted $25,000 cash prize for the recipient. Milken Educator Awards Vice President Stephanie Bishop and Kansas Commissioner of Education Randy Watson presented the award, the first in Girard USD 248 history.
“Today we celebrate Girard’s own Meredith Reid for her exceptional dedication to music education and the positive influence she brings to her students, school and community,” said Bishop, who received the Milken Educator Award as a fine arts teacher in Virginia. “Meredith cultivates artistic excellence in everyone she supports, nurturing hearts and minds and sustaining the love and appreciation of music in the community for generations to come. With Meredith as a guide, the possibilities are limitless. We look forward to her contributions to the national Milken Educator Network.”
Reid was honored as part of Milken Family Foundation’s 2024-25 Milken Educator Awards season. The tour will honor up to 45 professionals coast to coast. Since the presentation of the first awards in 1987, more than $75 million in individual cash prizes and over $145 million have been invested in the Milken Educator Award national network, empowering recipients to “celebrate, elevate and activate” the K-12 profession and encouraging young, capable people to consider a career in education.
“We are so pleased to see Meredith recognized for her tremendous contribution to her students and to the Girard community,” said Watson. “Her work not only to restore the school’s choral music program but to achieve state and national opportunities for her students and bring that pride to her community is what excellent teaching looks like.”
Reid was thankful for the honor during the presentation.
“To say this award is meaningful is an understatement,” she said. She called it “humbling” to be one of the Milken recipients. “And I’m so flattered. And I couldn’t have done it without all of you. I cannot stand in a classroom by myself. And you continue to show up. You continue to sing. You continue to make music with me every day. And that means the world to me,” Reid said.
After the assembly, Reid said a school principal pulled her aside before Christmas break and told her that Watson would be at the school in the new year and that he would like the choir to perform.
“I didn’t really know what it was for. I assumed the commissioner would be addressing the students and talking about education. My focus was getting the choir ready,” she said.
When the announcement was made, Reid said she was surprised her name was called given the number of “phenomenal educators” in the building.
“Just the sweetness of the moment to have my choir there with me and all my students really means a lot,” Reid said.
She said she was a summer assistant at the Milken Center in Fort Scott for several summers and would visit with Milken fellows.
She said after the presentation that teachers help shape students’ lives. She added there are still teachers working at Girard who inspired and helped shape her.
Her family has a strong connection to the education field. Two of her grandparents were educators and the GHS auditorium is named after her grandfather. Her father was a teacher and administrator in Girard as well. So moving into teaching was a natural step.
Reid said she loved music and singing in her younger years. There was not a huge opportunity for students interested in choir at Girard at that time. She majored in music in college and wanted to bring that back into rural schools, providing students with the opportunity to perform music at a higher level.
“It’s a lifelong skill,” she said of music.
Two years ago she started Generations, a community choir of all ages of citizens performing alongside students. The group performs two concerts a year.
“We have a strong community support here, and we have a lot of alumni that like to sing,” she said.
She said every day at school the question of why she does what she does gets answered.
“My why is when I see those kids come into my room. Whenever I see their progress and see their pride in the concerts that they do and the contests that they achieve 1 ratings, that becomes my why,” Reid said.
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She has had students whom she taught in sixth grade continue to participate in choir as seniors.
“It’s an incredible feeling and an incredible honor to guide them through that,” Reid said. “They’re incredible people, and they put incredible effort in. And so I feel I can only do the same to give back to them.”
More about Reid
Nearly all her high school soloists receive top ratings at the regional and state competitions. Reid had six students chosen for the Kansas All-State Choirs, one of only two choral programs in Southeast Kansas to achieve this. One of her choral students was selected to join the Kansas State University Summer Choral Institute, which admits only 48 students across the country each year.
In her classroom, Reid uses a positive reward system to motivate students to use good singing techniques. She presented the model at the Kansas Music Educators Association in-service workshop.
Outside of GHS, Reid serves as a local officer in P.E.O., a nonprofit organization that helps women pursue education; represented GHS at a national education conference; and served as board secretary for the American Choral Directors Association. Reid, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Kansas State University, has been involved with the Kansas Music Educators Association and served as Southeast Kansas choral chair.
Kansas joined the Milken Educator Awards program in 1992. Since then, 73 Kansas educators received the award.
Winners from Southeast Kansas are: Rex Babcock, Chanute High School (mathematics), 1993; Laura Caillouet, Jefferson Elementary School (second grade), Iola, 1998; Mary Lee Edwards, Yates Center High School (family and consumer sciences), Yates Center, 1992; Christy McNally, St. Mary’s Elementary School (general elementary), Pittsburg, 1996; George Tignor, Parsons High School (principal), Parsons, 1995. Tignor was also principal of the year in 1995 as named by the National Association of Secondary School Principals.
The Milken Educator Award reaps lifelong benefits: — The $25,000 cash award is unrestricted. Recipients have used the money in diverse ways. Some recipients have spent the funds on their children’s or their own continuing education, financing dream field trips, establishing scholarships, and even adopting children.
— Honorees receive powerful mentorship opportunities for expanded leadership roles that strengthen education practice and policy. Milken Friends Forever (MFF) pairs a new recipient with a veteran Milken Educator mentor; the Expanding MFF Resource and Explorer Program fosters individual veteran Milken Educator partnerships around specific topic areas; and Activating Milken Educators promotes group collaboration in and across states to bring solutions to pressing educational needs.
— The honorees attend an all-expenses-paid Milken Educator Awards Forum in Los Angeles in April 2025, where they will network with their new colleagues as well as veteran Milken Educators and other education leaders about how to broaden their impact on K-12 education.
— Veteran Milken Educators demonstrate a range of leadership roles at state, national and international levels.
