Henrico's Top Teachers – Karen Shrader, Nuckols Farm Elementary School

It may be only her second year as a teacher at Nuckols Farm Elementary School, but Karen Shrader has wasted little time making an impact on her fourth-graders.

Each of her lessons is guided by a simple question: “How can I make it come alive for my kiddos?

To pique their curiosity, she calls upon a “mystery reader” to join class each week to read, do experiments or enhance the class in another way.

To help her students learn about meteorology, she enlisted the help of NBC 12 meteorologist Sophia Armata, who spoke to the class and connected immediately with students.

To help students take ownership in the class, she assigns each one their own Google Slide Show slide, which collectively become “The Shrader Scoop” – the class’s virtual newspaper.

To help them learn about watersheds, she turned to Lindy Dunham with the Henricopolis Soil and Water Conservation District, who provided an at-home experiment for each student to complete.

For Shrader, who spent 18 years previous years at Elmont and Laurel Meadows elementary schools in Hanover before a brief stint at Springfield Park Elementary in Innsbrook, the key to connecting with students and exciting their brains has less to do with the subject at hand and more to do with the experiences they have. So she provides as many of the latter as she can.

Shrader considers her true passion to be math, but in practice, it appears to be learning.

To help get her students access to national parks, she worked with local park rangers to ensure that they each received a National Parks lanyard with information about how to bring their entire families into any national park for free (something the system offers for fourth-graders nationwide).

To help them learn about the geography of their home state, Shrader connected with VDOT, which provided every student a free map of the state.

“I’m a go-getter,” Shrader said. “I like to live life to the fullest. I have one year to make an impact on my crew of fourth-graders.”

She appears likely to stop at nothing to provide them with the most hands-on learning opportunities she can find.

“From the very beginning Mrs. Shrader went above and beyond by turning her dining room into a classroom that made it look and feel like she was at school,” one parent nominator wrote. “To keep the kids engaged she would wear a different hat to go with a holiday or learning theme. She found a way to keep the kids guessing and intrigued about what she was going to do next which gave them a reason to get excited each morning.”

Though the pandemic and associated virtual learning efforts have been challenging, Shrader looks on the bright side.

“I feel like it’s been ‘What have we gained?’” as opposed to what has been lost, she said. “My students have become incredible with technology. Our curriculum coaches have developed a lot of amazing lessons that were engaging. There’s a lot for teachers to pick from.

“Henrico rose to the occasion with lots of opportunity to be flexible and meet kids where they are.”

When her class was learning about the Revolutionary War, it was joined virtually by the grandfather of a student who is a Revolutionary War re-enactor at Colonial Williamsburg. The virtual nature of the year “really opened up a lot of doors,” she said.

Wrote a parent of Shrader in a nomination letter: “Her consistency in an inconsistent world made for a better than expected virtual experience.”

Shrader expects a lot of her students – but more of herself.

“Because it’s been an exceptional year, I want to do an exceptional job,” she said. “I feel compelled. . . to make an impact. For the year that I've got my students, I want them to be excited, to be engaged.”