New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
The Brainy Bunch
Ansonia Teacher of the year comes from a long line of educators
ANSONIA — Karen Phipps expected to enter a career in textile marketing. Instead, faced with a weak job market after she graduated from college, she pivoted to what she knew best: education. It proved the perfect choice. Phipps, who teaches business and career technical education at the city’s high school, promotes students’ accomplishment on social media and helps get grant money, has been named Ansonia’s Teacher of the Year.
“I am extremely honored,” Phipps said, who has been teaching for 22 years. “I think its the greatest and most rewarding profession to be in.”
“She is a true leader who gives 100 percent every day for our students and staff,” said schools Superintendent Joseph DiBacco. “My personal goal has been to provide as many opportunities as possible for Ansonia children, and her work has supported this vision. Her message this year is to show gratitude — and I am very grateful to her.”
Phipps graduated from college with a degree in textile marketing from the University of Rhode Island, but began substitute teaching in Shelton schools after she found the textile job market tight, she said.
“I wanted to work in New York City,” she said. “I love the changing nature of fashion and its window displays. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
Substitute teaching convinced Phipps that teaching business skills to high school students was her calling, she said. She joined Ansonia High School’s staff in 1998.
“The ability to combine my passion for business, my own love of learning and the enthusiasm of a high school setting inspired me to follow in my mother’s footsteps and become a teacher,” Phipps said. Her mother, Lorraine Hemenway Sedlock, was a physical education teacher in the Shelton and Stratford districts before retiring after 26 years.
But her mother isn’t the only teacher in the family.
Two aunts are educators — Michelle Sedlock, who teaches at Shelton Intermediate School, and Barbara Hemenway, who retired after teaching at Shelton High School. Two uncles are retired teachers —
Joseph Sedlock, who retired after teaching at Shelton High School, and Richard Hemenway, who retired after teaching at Shelton Intermediate School.
Phipp’s two sisters-inlaw are teachers — Meghan Finn, who teaches at Fairfield Warde High School, and Melissa
Phipps, who teaches at Ansonia’s Assumption School. Two cousins Katherine Sedlock is a paraprofessional at Shelton’s Perry Hill School and Joe Sedlock is a paraprofessional at Westport’s Staples High School. They are Joseph and Michelle Sedlock’s children.
Phipps’ husband, Timothy, is a history teacher and head football coach at Hopkins School in New Haven; Phipp’s sister, Marcia McGinley, is the Willington Public Schools’ director of special education.
“We are extremely proud of Karen,” said Nina Phipps, who with her husband, Chris, are Karen’s cousins and both active in the city’s public service fields. Chris Phipps chairs the Ansonia Board of Education and is a member of the Ansonia-Derby School Regionalization Temporary Study committee. Nina Phipps unsuccessfully ran for alderman.
“From day one, she has put her heart and soul into Ansonia High School and, most importantly, the students,” Nina Phipps said. “Ask any of her students and you will more than likely hear them say she was the best teacher they ever had. This is a very well deserved honor.”
Stacy Milkowski was a student in Phipps’ business classes.
“My father passed away during my senior year and Mrs. Phipps helped me cope and get through it,”
Milkowski recalled. “Without her, I don’t know what I would have done. She kept me going.”
Milkowski said Phipps “really cares about her students and it showed in the way she interacted with us.”
The 2020-21 school year, with its home learning and closed school buildings to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, has created new challenges for Phipps and her colleagues, the veteran teacher said.
“Teaching during the pandemic has been challenging,” Phipps said. “I am fortunate to work with resourceful teachers and administrators that are up for this challenge.”
During her ‘Back to School’ virtual speech as Teacher of the Year, Phipps told her colleagues the challenge “offers us time to reflect on what we are grateful for and what makes this profession truly rewarding. We will still collaborate, educate and celebrate our students’ accomplishments. We will still be teachers.”
Recently she conducted the High School’s club fair virtually.
“You just have to use your imagination to figure out how to the normal things virtually,” she said. “So some clubs submitted slide shows others provided videos.We have a huge club involvement here.”
Phipps received her master’s degree in teaching in 1999 From Sacred Heart University; a sixth year certificate in education foundations in 2002 from Southern Connecticut University and a master’s degree in Integrating Technology into the Classroom in 2008 from Walden University.
She was a business education teacher for several years and has been a Master
Teacher for the past eight years. As a Master Teacher, DiBacco said, Phipps is a coach and mentor for other instructors.
Phipps serves on the district data team and has participated in several district and school improvement plans. She has worked with administrators to secure state and federal funding for technology integration and program improvements, and this past year worked with several teachers to secure grant funding in business technology education, world language and English. She has also been co-chairman of the NEASC accreditation team at the high school.
“She is so selfless with her time,” said high school Principal Paul Giansanti. “She has the pulse of the teachers and ensures that they are fully supported. We are very lucky to have her.”
Phipps works with DiBacco and Steve Bergin, the assistant superintendent in finding dual enrollment classes for students with colleges and business partners. A partnership with Housatonic Community College was expanded this year to include two college credits in blueprint reading and three college credits in solid works. New partnerships with Southern Connecticut State University and Post University began this fall.
Her message to students, teachers and parents in this pandemic time is a simple one.
“Show you deeply care for one another,” Phipps said. “My advice is to focus on compassion, attitude, resilience and effort.”
Phipps and her husband live in Beacon Falls with their children, Caitlin, 14, Maeve, 12 and Thomas, 9.