Who We Are – Khayree Bey

Khayree Bey – 2021 Colonial School District Teacher of the Year

Khayree Bey, a health teacher at McCullough Middle School, has been named Colonial’s Teacher of the Year.  He also leads the way in teaching mindfulness to students and on occasion to staff during professional development days.  The mindfulness sessions, often held in McCullough’s planetarium, encourages participants to meditate by focusing on what they are sensing and feeling at the moment.  Bey has found it helpful to teach students breathing techniques that help teens to focus, relax, and act appropriately during stressful situations.

Bey is also one of the seven original “Educators of Color,” an organization Colonial founded in 2016 for all teachers and staff who are committed to making equity-based decisions and actions.  “Districts need to focus on the underrepresented population in teaching by recruiting, assisting, and maintaining educators of color to better serve all of our students,” Bey says.

Bey is proud of his equity work with the District, and co-facilitates numerous equity-based trauma and poverty informed book studies, zoom lectures, and more saying,” I believe this is important because our students arrive at school with a tremendous amount of trauma from toxic stress. This trauma directly impedes their ability to excel academically, physically, socially and emotionally.”

 Aside from being an advocate for students and his strong commitment to seeing that the Colonial School District continues to intentionally move towards becoming “anti-racist,” Bey was nominated and confirmed to the Delaware Senate Professional Standards Board for the three-year term.  At McCullough, he takes on projects like black history and Hispanic/Latino celebrations and volunteers as a DJ and emcee at incentive dances and events.  The Colonial School District is proud that Khayree Bey, the 2020-2021 District Teacher of the Year, represents Who WE ARE!

Khayree is #WhoWEAreCSD.