Lively Teachers and staff have gotten almost 30 RAVE awards this school year alone. A RAVE award stands for “Recognizing All Valuable Employees.” The Rave award is an award when students, teachers or parents recognize a teacher or staff member that helps them.
“Our school has so many RAVE awards we can’t drop them all at once,” said Lively Middle School Principal Sarah Hodges.
Samantha Gang, Lively Theater Teacher, has already received two RAVE awards this year so far. She loves acting and loves teaching. She got nominated for RAVEs by a lot of supportive people and she really loves to act for her students. “I’ve been working hard for my students to enjoy me acting,” said Gang.
Domonique James is a school counselor and loves to help kids out. She feels appreciated for the RAVE award she just received in January. She gets noticed she works everyday and works hard. James shouts out Michelle Garcia, another counselor at Lively Middle School, for always helping James when she’s out on her downside. Garcia won a RAVE award of her own last November.
Winning RAVE awards at Lively is not new. LaTash King and Darby Stillwell both won RAVE awards last year. King is a science and math teacher. King has been working for a good 13 years and is a really chill and nice teacher. King is so happy that she got a rave award and she says she deserves it. “Heck Yeah, I Deserve it. I love teaching and I work hard,” King said. Stillwell is a Science Teacher she loves teaching science and when she first got the rave award she was really excited. “I Love Teaching I’ve been working hard and I love students,” said Stillwell.
All these teachers are so hard working and talented they really deserve RAVE awards. To nominate a Lively teacher or staff member, click here. For a full list of all AISD staff that have received RAVE awards, click here.
Lively RAVE winners in 2023-2024 school year:
| Name | When? | Staff Type |
| Ashley Garza | August | Teacher |
| Priscilla Hernandez | August | Staff |
| Leticia Saba | August | Teacher |
| Elizabeth Northcutt | September | Teacher |
| Ileana White | September | Staff |
| Shai Zimmerman | September | Teacher |
| Glorimar Figueroa | October | Staff |
| Samantha Gang | October | Teacher |
| Leticia Saba | October | Teacher |
| Cecilia Calvelo | November | Teacher |
| David Cornwell | November | Teacher |
| Johnny Galan | November | Teacher |
| Michelle Garcia | November | Counselor |
| Jaime Angel | December | Custodian |
| Tereza Vazquez | December | Staff |
| Sean Addington | January | Teacher |
| Alladira Artega | January | Staff |
| Elijah Benson | January | Teacher |
| Jennette Everett | January | Teacher |
| Samantha Gang | January | Teacher |
| Jacob Gray | January | Teacher |
| Travis Horne | January | Teacher |
| Domonique James | January | Counselor |
| Andres Nava | January | Teacher |
| Lori Pearce | January | Teacher |
| Azucena Ramos | January | Staff |
| Jessica Tovar | January | Staff |
| Veronica Twining | January | Teacher |
| Shai Zimmerman | January | Teacher |
**As of the publishing of this article, the RAVE awards for February 2024 haven’t been announced.