Melanie Moore – Matheson Junior High School

I would like to nominate Ms. Melanie Moore, student counselor at Matheson Junior High for the Teacher Feature Award with KSL and Zion’s Bank. My oldest son Cesar has the privilege to have Ms. Moore as his 7th grade counselor this year and her dedication to taking care of the students and more specifically my son is outstanding.
My son Cesar was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma Cancer in October of 2012. Upon finding the horrible news, many things began to unravel at home and school. My son loves school and he was worried on how he could still take part and be normal while having cancer. We immediately got in contact with Ms. Moore about the health condition to ask how we needed to proceed with a balance of school, home and medical treatment.

Ms. Moore took the time find out exactly what Cesar needed to do to remain up on his classes and be part of the normal school environment. She assisted in making schedule adjustments along with putting us in touch with the school nurse and the district to arrange the necessary medical exceptions for him to attend school. When he could not attend, she immediately offered to take charge of communicating with his teachers, collecting homework and returning completed assignments. While it seems like an easy task, I am sure it was not being that she works with hundreds of students at the same time. The fact was able to do this for us, allowed us to focus on treatments at the hospital.

While after one month of being diagnosed we had to turn to the route of home education for a few months, she continued to remain engaged in my Cesar’s progress and well being during the entire 1st term. Knowing that he we would be back soon, she held open communication with us on school activities and advised how Cesar could still participate as a visitor to the school and remain socially involved.

We recently have been able to re-enroll Cesar back in the normal school atmosphere and again Ms. Moore took full control of assuring his return would be effortless. She worked with us on moving classes to find a schedule that would fit the shorter school day and work in most of the same teachers back into his classes. She did not give up until we had a schedule that my son felt comfortable with and could handle while we continue a less aggressive treatment for the next few months.

Ms. Moore is a counselor that every school should strive to have. She has never once said she could not help and has always offered to assure whatever needed to be done was followed up on. Ms. Moore not only to meet these needs of her job as a counselor to provide academic guidance, process of schedules and daily student concerns but she is clearly someone who has true love for her job and concern for the students she works with. She is our academic angel and without her my son would not be able to remain successful during his treatment and remain in touch with the academic and social life that comes with school. The positive impact she has had on our family during our time of distress is truly amazing, and we cannot ever express enough our gratitude and respect that we have for her. She is so deserving of this award and on behalf of our family we ask that you please award her accordingly.

— Yvonne & Cesar Navarro