Lawrence Jehnert considers being named Harford County Public Schools Teacher of the Year to be a symbol of his experience in the school system coming “full circle” from when he was a student in the county schools and struggling to meet the potential his teachers told him he had.
“The whole thing is kind of like a full-circle story for me,” he said during an interview last week in his classroom at Edgewood Elementary School after the students had left for the day. He teaches 23 third-graders.
He was named the top teacher March 26 during a banquet held at the Bayou Restaurant in Havre de Grace.
Jehnert, who grew up in the greater Bel Air area and is a 1997 graduate of C. Milton Wright High School, spent his early childhood in Rosedale. Now he lives in Bel Air with his wife and two children.
He noted during his acceptance speech that Superintendent Barbara Canavan was his principal when he attended Southampton Middle School from 1990 to 1993.
He said during the interview in his classroom when he was in school, “I just never worked up to my potential.”
Jehnert said his mother would cry because she could never get a bumper sticker that said her son was an outstanding student, and he lamented that she could not attend an assembly where he would be honored for his scholastic achievements.
