Junior high school Social Studies teacher Sayre Posey has been named Utah’s 2025 State Teacher of the Year. Photo credit: Northwest Middle School
Many exceptional educators work with our nation’s young people, and one of them is Sayre Posey, a Social Studies teacher from Utah. She has been named her state’s 2025 Teacher of the Year.
In a career that has spanned nine years, Sayre taught first in Baltimore City Public Schools in Maryland. She currently she teaches US history to eighth graders at Northwest Middle School, a Title 1 school in Salt Lake City. There she employs culturally relevant and project-based teaching strategies.
In her classroom, Sayre strives to build strong relationships and high self-esteem, which she believes will help to close the achievement gap. Sayre encourages her students to become researchers and historians in their own right. And the effort has yielded impressive results. As participants in National History Day, her students have garnered awards at both the regional and state level.
“I love designing hands-on learning activities in class and opportunities for students to re-enact or role-play history,” declares Sayre. “For example, we recently investigated a Boston Massacre crime scene before re-enacting the trial of the British soldiers,” she continues. “I think giving students the opportunity to experience history through hands-on learning generates higher student engagement and learning outcomes. It makes it memorable,” she concludes.
Sayre’s selection as the 2025 Utah Teacher of the Year, Sayre was selected the 2016 Maryland Teacher of Promise. She also presented at the annual conference of the 2022 National Council of Teachers of English. Her topic was literacy strategies for social justice teaching.
Sayre earned her Bachelor’s degree in History Education from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. She earned her Master’s degree in Education from Southern Utah University. She also earned teaching credentials in Social Studies, English as a Second Language, and Education Technology.
To learn more about Sayre, click on this link to a newspaper article about her published by the Salt Lake City Weekly.
