Iowa Association For Health, Physical Education, Recreation And Dance (IAHPERD)

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From left to right: Kathryn Szabo (Elementary Teacher of the Year)

JKathy Szabo has taught physical education at Coolidge Elementary for 11 years.  Kathy exemplifies the characteristic of a master educator.  She teaches the whole child and strives for balance in that accord.  Kathy’s leadership, enthusiasm, competency, determination, and personality join with her impeccable ability to work with her peers to achieve success.  She has been a leader during Cedar Rapids’s physical education curriculum revision, elementary in-service meetings, PE Seminar meetings, and during the recent elementary report card revision.

She is a hard working and caring individual.  She is admired by her students and has a knack for getting the most out of her classes while making the activities fun. Her students have a great respect for her and look forward to going to class each day.  She utilizes a variety of teaching strategies to motivate and educate her students across grade levels and activities.  She tailors the lessons to the grade levels of the students and then accommodates and differentiates even more for the skill levels within each grade. Kathy’s physical education classroom is always full of happy smiles, attractive visual props, adequate equipment, and passionate learners. 

Kathy reminds students, staff, parents, and the community that healthy students are better learners across all academic realms.  With the rise of obesity and associated illnesses at even younger ages, Kathy helps students learn to take control of their own health and fitness while still having fun.  Students who come in contact with her, walk away with a life long awareness of making healthy choices across a variety of settings.  They understand that they can set their own goals and achieve those through hard work but also enjoy the journey.

Kathy is not an 8 to 4:00 teacher. She runs a very successful before school intramural program for 4 and 5th graders that NO ONE wants to miss.
She coaches the Iowa Sippers Jump Rope team…she organizes and supervises weekly practices, educational visits to schools, and community activities. Kathy works with a younger group of junior skippers every other Friday morning at her school.  Kathy also runs a summer jump rope camp with the help of 3 very important retirees from the Skippers program.  This year’s camp had over 300 jumpers from all metro area schools and jumpers from as far away as a hundred miles.