Ryleigh Diskin and Christopher Heady named SMSD's 2024 Horizon Award Nominees

The Shawnee Mission School District (SMSD) is proud to recognize Ryleigh Diskin and Christopher Heady as the district’s 2024-2025 Kansas Horizon Award nominees!  This prestigious award honors outstanding teachers who demonstrate exceptional promise in the first year of their career. These nominees exemplify dedication, inclusivity, and a commitment to student success.

Diskin teaches first grade at Ray Marsh Elementary school and is SMSD’s elementary nominee. “Ryleigh works relentlessly to create a classroom community where all students feel welcome, loved, and cared for,” says Ray Marsh Principal, Tayler Ramsey. “Ryleigh is an outstanding educator for many reasons but her ability to create a classroom environment where all students feel like they belong is something truly worth celebrating.”

Diskin says her personal experience with social emotional awareness and learning has helped her students connect curriculum and lessons with real people and real stories. “I could see as we went through stories in my class, my students who struggle with kindness, empathy and inclusion open up to understand and accept others,” says Diskin. “Even as first-graders, I love seeing them become even more confident, caring, and accepting humans.”

Heady teaches journalism at Shawnee Mission Northwest and is SMSD’s secondary nominee. He creates “a space where student leaders make key decisions, shape their vision, and hone their craft as journalists,” said Dr. Lisa Gruman, Principal at SM Northwest. “Mr. Heady stepped into this role as just the second journalism sponsor in the history of our school, inheriting high expectations alongside the challenge of building a program true to his style.”

In his short time at Northwest, Heady has not only maintained the integrity of the prestigious journalism program, but continued to help his students excel. Two of his students were named the 2024 Kansas Scholastic Press Association Writer and Designer of Year. The newspaper, Northwest Passage, won first place in the Journalism Educators of Metro Kansas City Sweepstakes Contest. And five of his students are finalists for Individual Pacemaker Awards- the National Scholastic Press Association’s preeminent award recognizing the best of the best.

Heady says his “core value as an educator is giving students opportunities for authentic real-world learning in real-time with real-life stakes.”

“The journalism room at Northwest is a newsroom, centered around project-based learning, collaborative work, high expectations and extensive feedback. Rather than read about journalism, the kids actually do it,” says Heady.

Heady and Diskin will now be considered with other elementary and secondary teachers in the region for state Horizon Award recognition. Kansas has four regions, divided by congressional districts, with a possibility of one elementary and one secondary award winner from each region for a possible total of 32 teachers.