New Haven Independent

It seemed like a Tuesday morning like any other in Nicole Bimonte’s busy art classroom at Katherine Brennan School. Little did the teacher know that her principal, Celeste Davis (pictured here with her), and school system officials were rounding up students and family in the hallway. They were on hand to give Bimonte the public schools’ “Super Teacher of the Month” award.

She’s the third recipient. The system used to give one teacher of the year award. Then officials decided top teachers needed more recognition.

Bimonte, a New Haven native who’s 29, has taught K-8 art classes at Brennan and its affiliated school across the street, Clarence Rogers, for four years.

She was completely surprised, and moved, when her husband, mother, grandparents, and a bevy of officials calling themselves the “Surpise Squad” entered the room unannounced to give her the award Tuesday morning. Click on the play arrow to watch the highlights.

A second-grade choir, whom principal Davis had kept quietly waiting in a separate room, came to serenade Bimonte.

Principal Davis and Superintendent of School Reginald Mayo spoke of Bimonte’s many roles at Brennan: not just teaching art, but coordinating the community school program, involving students in a storytelling competition, working with autistic and special-needs children, serving as seventh and eighth-grade adviser.

“When do you have time to eat?” Mayo asked her.

He praised her practice of incorporating students’ other subjects into the art curriculum. “That is the epitome of what education should be about — an interdisciplinary approach,” Mayo said.

Teachers union President David Cicarella, who served on the committee that chose Bimonte, spoke of the significance of an art teacher winning the award. Math and reading are essential disciplines in the schools, but so is art, and it needs equal recognition, he said.

A party followed in another room after the ceremony. Bimonte hadn’t know about the preparations that had taken place there, either.