By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT–Coming out of the COVID-era middle school years, Jonathan Dobin-Smith got just the academic push he needed in Meghan Scheck’s ninth-grade Honors Language Arts class at Staples High School, according to his mom.

So when the now freshman at the University of Chicago was asked to nominate a teacher who made a significant impact on his life, it was an easy first assignment.

“Ms. Scheck is one of those teachers I know I’ll always remember,” said Dobin-Smith in an email to Westport Journal on Monday. “She created a classroom that felt like a college seminar. Everyone was excited to be there, to really get into the drama of Shakespeare, laugh at the comedies, debate what we were reading, and learn how to write well.”

Scheck and the school district have been notified that the Staples English teacher has received a University of Chicago Outstanding Educator Award.

An award given out by UChicago for decades, all educators who are formally nominated by incoming students and whose submissions meet the program’s criteria receive the award.

Typically, a third of incoming undergraduate classes submit nominations each year.

Award winners receive a commemorative award, a certificate, and letter that include details from the student who nominated them. Principals and superintendents of award winners will also receive communications notifying them that their employees have received the award.

Jess DiBuono, Coordinator of English Language Arts 6–12 for Westport Public Schools, was not surprised Scheck received the recognition.

“When a student heading to the University of Chicago looks back and credits your guidance for their intellectual growth, it shows that the daily effort to build learning reaches students in ways that last,” DiBuno said.

UChicago is one of several selective colleges and universities that sponsor high school teacher recognition programs where incoming students nominate educators who shaped their academic journey.

Dobin-Smith, a member of UChicago’s Class of 2030, said Scheck’s legendary high standards made him want to take his work seriously and push himself.

“She made me a better writer, a more engaged reader, a more confident orator, and a student who expects (a lot) more from himself,” Dobin-Smith wrote.

His mom, Danielle Dobin, a member of the Democratic Town Committee from District 4, the current chair of the Board of Finance and former chair of the Planning and Zoning Commission, said that because of Scheck, her son went on to enjoy so many of his classes at Staples, with Shakespeare Honors being particularly meaningful.

“She inspired a much deeper love of literature, and plays, and a real commitment to excellence in his work that has stayed with him. He’s really seeing the benefit of that now given the rigor of the coursework at UChicago,” the mom said.

Scheck has been a teacher at Staples since 2010.

Linda Conner Lambeck

^{_{Linda Conner Lambeck covers education for Westport Journal. She was a reporter for more than four decades at the Connecticut Post and other Hearst publications. She has covered education throughout Fairfield and New Haven counties. She is a proud member of the Education Writers Association.}}