State Teacher of the Year finalist Paolo Tolomeo poses with his fourth-grade class at Haine Elementary School.

CRANBERRY TWP — A fourth-grade teacher at Haine Elementary School is a finalist in the 2020 Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year competition.

Paolo Tolomeo is one of a dozen teachers selected and, if chosen as Teacher of the Year, he would represent more than 122,000 teachers across the state.

The state Department of Education will announce the 2020 Teacher of the Year during a special awards ceremony in December.

“In the meantime, I'll consider myself a winner,” Tolomeo said.

Anyone can nominate a teacher for the award, and Tolomeo was nominated by two families of students in his class. He was required to write a reflective essay about what he does in the classroom, his teaching philosophies and his accomplishments.

In the semifinal round of the competition, a telephone interview was conducted. Teachers were given four questions to prepare and two improvisational questions and were scored with a rubric.

Now, the top 12 teachers in the state will have to videotape a lesson and write a reflection on it.

Tolomeo, who has been teaching for 13 years, said he was “very surprised” to learn he was a finalist.

“I had never been nominated before,” he said. “You come into your job every day, and you try to do what's best for your kids.”

Tolomeo joked that he asked if having two nominations would increase his chances of winning — which he was told it would not. He said he was most proud of “the fact that they went through the trouble.”

“It was an honor,” he said. “I'm pretty lucky to have a great group of kids and supportive families as well.”

Tolomeo said a focus of his teaching philosophy and his essay is “finding individualized instruction for the kids.”

“I can't stand in the front of my room and teach one lesson to the whole class,” he said. “It's working with small groups, individual kids, to gain access to the material.”

At the beginning of the year, he said he works with students to find out their interests and incorporate them into the lesson plan. Tolomeo offers his students options for activities they can do to learn the material, adding that he has students who do more than one.

“A lot of kids have done extra work with that,” he said. “We call them our 'side quests.'”

Tolomeo said this increases the students' interest in the material and lets them know that their teachers “truly care about them and that we're not just here doing a job.”

“At the end of the day, I'm trying to convince them that what I'm teaching is valuable,” he said. “I have to make sure they're pushing themselves.”

The competition, hosted by the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National State Teacher of the Year Organization, began in 1952 and honors excellence in teaching.

Kristen White, Haine Elementary School principal, said Tolomeo “creates a positive classroom community that is built on trust, inclusion of all diversity and high expectations for both learning and behavior.”

“Children in his classroom are encouraged to take risks in a non-threatening environment, which supports learning, encourages resiliency and reinforces the pillars of mindfulness,” White said. “Students are expected to work in collaboration through the day, and high levels of engagement are simply the norm.”

Tolomeo has taught in the Seneca Valley School District for 10 years, and Superintendent Tracy Vitale said he is “one of our finest teachers.”