County Teacher Graduates from WestTeach Program

Deana Sain was selected and participated in the University of Tennessee at Martin’s 2022 WestTeach program.  Program applicants must be recommended by their director of schools or superintendent, and only one teacher per school district is chosen to participate each year.  Graduation was held December 13th at UTM, and this year’s theme was “Bridging the Gap between Classroom, Community and Commerce”.

Sain is the Library Media Specialist at Bolivar Middle School and has been employed with the Hardeman County School System since 1996.  She is a member of Delta Kappa Gamma, the Hatchie Chapter of DAR, BMS Leadership Team, TASL, TN STEM Task Force Alliance, and TETA Instructional Learning Network Steering Committee.  Sain has been the recipient of TVA/TSIN Grants, TN Humanities Grant, TN STEM Grants, DAR Grant, and the James Patterson Grant.  She was awarded the 2019 TASL Innovative Library Media Award, Master Library Award from Renaissance Learning, and is the 2022 Teacher of the Year at BMS.

WestTeach is the premier leadership-development program for teachers in the 21 counties of West Tennessee.  The WestTeach mission is to engage and equip West Tennessee teachers with the tools and leadership skills for success in and outside the classroom. Sain participated in four sessions on West Tennessee agriculture, the humanity of leadership, creating partnerships for economic development and building communities.

For more information, contact Virginia Grimes, assistant director of WestStar leadership, at weststar@utm.edu or (731) 851-7298.