Savannah Weaver, a first grade teacher at Abingdon Elementary School, was recently selected as the Williamsburg Area Reading Council (WARC) Reading Teacher of the Year. 

The award recognizes a teacher whose commitment to literacy is exemplary/unparalleled, according to WARC. As the WARC Reading Teacher of the Year, Weaver will receive a $250 award and her application will be submitted to the Virginia State Reading Association for consideration for the Offie T. Rubin Reading Teacher of the Year Award.

The application for the WARC award requires candidates to submit a one-page essay stating their reading philosophy. In her essay, Weaver wrote as follows:  “When I received my bachelor’s degree from William and Mary, I was the first person in my family to do so. Reading changed me, in the very literal sense. I saw doing well in school as my ticket out of the cycle of poverty that was hanging over my head as I grew up, a cycle that I was aware of at a very young age....