West Meck celebrates both Harry Riley (Software Development instructor) and Gregory Gardner (Software Development student)! Recognized by fellow West Meck teacher Craig Mandelbaum, he has this to say about Mr. Riley’s presence and impact at school: ‘I have been very lucky to be in a Pathway PLC at West Meck that includes just tremendous teachers and humans. Mr. Riley has been my mentor, my shoulder to cry on, and the mirror to my approaches, letting me know when it is undistorted, or when it is a funhouse! He has a tremendous background to be a teacher, serving in law enforcement and a decade in EC,… so his outlook, his perception, and his feedback always is grounded, realistic, and enthusiastic. I see him approach each period with a great smile, excited to teach students, and also buying into the instructional and managerial requests from our bosses. For example, The Hero system of tracking awards is great, but many instructors, including me are inconsistent with it. Mr. Riley has made it a very consistent, reliable and valuable part of his classes to ensure prompt arrival and no tardies. If he was any less consistent, it would fall apart, but he goes out of his way to ensure the students get their best experience, learning from it. Mr. Riley is a voracious reader of books on his pathway content, and he is always the voice of reason in sometimes unreasonable times. He is natural teacher!’. We should all be so fortunate to come across an educator like Harry Riley in our schools. We salute you!
Mr. Mandelbaum also shared this about West Meck student, Gregory Gardner. ‘Greg is a super student, and a super CS student. He has advanced past my ability to teach him programming because he was always a student of the game. His advancement may have benefitted from my guidance and some learning, but Greg took it on himself to get into programming, and very quickly picking up advanced concepts. He showed me the ethical use of AI in the classroom and it conforms to our new NCDPI protocols. His reasoning for choices is always a perfect model for the attitudes, problem solving and methods we teach. In summary, Greg is that poster for what our program can be, because he did exactly what we asked him to try, and it worked beyond my hopes! Greg is also an exceptional student on campus, in other classes, and is my top student to nominate.’ We salute Gregory as the future of CTE! You make us proud and we are excited to see what you accomplish in the future!
