Sharie Scott, a third grade teacher at Kaysville’s Creekside Elementary School, was a quarterfinalist in the second annual America’s Favorite Teacher contest. She narrowly missed out on a semifinal berth, finishing second in her group.

“It’s just so crazy. Like, you just see this little ad, and someone nominates you, and pretty soon you’re, like, in it, and it’s really, really humbling, because all teachers deserve it,” Scott told the Standard-Examiner.

Teaching has been a lifelong pursuit for Scott, who began acting as a teacher for her siblings and cousins as a child growing up in Bountiful.

“Since I was maybe three or four, my mom says, I always just had a little teacher room. They gave me a desk and a chalkboard and let me do bulletin boards and all the things,” Scott said.

“Everyone that knew me knew I was going to be a teacher because I always was making them be the students.”

Scott says her brother was her “guinea pig” student; it was not uncommon for her to give him extra assignments in addition to his actual homework.

Education is a family tradition for Scott. On her mother’s side, one grandparent was a Jordan School District administrator, while the other worked as a secretary to the superintendents. Meanwhile, family on her father’s side sold Blue Bird school buses throughout the region.

Over the last 24 years, Scott has taught kindergarten, second grade and third grade. After having taught in person for the better part of two decades, she moved from the classroom to online teaching with Davis Connect amid the pandemic; she was also raising young twins at the time.

Mere days before the start of the current school year, though, she was informed that there would not be enough students for her to continue teaching virtually. So, on short notice, she returned to the classroom in a new school.

“I had to kind of reassess and redo everything. So, I ended up at Creekside Elementary this year, and it has been great. I had three really, really hard kids that have just taught me so much and taught me so much about my own kids and vice versa,” she said. “It has been just such a blessing and kind of a miraculous year. My own kids are at another school just because I just want them where their friends are. So, that’s been tricky, doing the mom and the teacher thing, but we’re making it work.”

Looking back on her career thus far, Scott says she’s proud of both big milestones and small victories. She recalls raising money and delivering supplies for the building of a schoolhouse for a Peruvian orphanage. She has also seen a student go from struggling to read a few words to reading more than 100 per minute.

Scott cites flexibility as the key to being successful as a teacher.

“I think if you want to be a teacher, you have to be flexible because it’s always changing from day to day,” Scott said. “Just seeing each kid for who and what they are, and they all come with different strengths and different struggles.”

Organized by the fundraiser Colossal, America’s Favorite Teacher benefits The Planetary Society, a nonprofit space organization “inspiring discovery through education, innovation, and a passion for the cosmos,” according to a release.