Conley educator is region's Teacher of the Year
By Jennifer White, The Daily Reflector
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Aside from his typical pep rally attire of khakis, a navy and gold stripe polo shirt and sneakers, D.H.ConleyHigh School teacher G. Coleman Bailey Jr. was unprepared for school on Tuesday.
Bailey, the coordinator of the Conley Crazies, the school's pep club, was running late and didn't have time to shave. When he arrived at school, nobody seemed prepared for the event Bailey thought was to welcome Superintendent Beverly Reep to D.H. Conley.
Then at 2 p.m., about 1,000 students and school employees cheered as a representative with the State Department of Public Instruction announced Bailey was selected the 2005-06 Northeast Region Teacher of the Year.
“The only thing I was thinking was that Dr. Reep was going to be so disappointed at our pep rally,” Bailey said at a reception after the event. “I was convinced we weren't going to really put forward our best foot for our new superintendent when she came to visit.”
Students and colleagues say Bailey's career is focused on giving his best. Even this year, as he learns to live with multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease and copes with an unexpected death of one of his students.
The chemistry and physics teacher represents 15 school districts and is one of eight finalists who will compete April 30 to May 1 in Cary for N.C. Teacher of the Year.
The school system has had four regional winners since 2001.
As the regional winner, Bailey receives $5,000, an engraved plaque and opportunities to attend and facilitate professional development programs. He also is on the committee to select the 2006-07 Pitt County Teacher of the Year.
Moments before Bailey's award was announced, his parents Grady and Miriam Bailey, both educators, playfully argued about which parent their son most resembles.
“He's a whole lot like his mom,” Bailey Sr. said. “But he got his daddy's scientific brain,” Miriam Bailey said.
Bailey said his parents inspired the way he runs his classroom.
“I feel like I'm a perfect blend between my father, who was a science teacher, and my mother, who was an elementary education major,” he said. “My classroom offers the challenges that you would want from a high school physics classroom but also gives you the nurturing you might receive from an elementary classroom.”
Miriam recalls a school trip to New York where Bailey chose a creative way to teach his students about momentum.
“He was doing flips on the subway, and a policeman asked if I was his mother,” she said. “I said, 'Yes I am, but is he in trouble?' Everywhere he is, is a teachable moment.”
Besides chemistry and physics, Bailey teaches computer animation and broadcasting. He also advises the Conley Crazies and Student Athletes for Sports Integrity clubs. After school, he coaches track and cross county.
Bailey also championed a school fund-raiser in honor of the late Robert "Bo" Thompson, a student and cross county runner who died in a car accident last year. The $14,000 the school raised will pay for a state-of-the-art running trail at Boyd Lee Park. Bailey does all these things while battling multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease of the central nervous system that he was diagnosed with during last year's Teacher of the Year competition.
Bailey said he left school the day he was diagnosed. When he talked to a co-worker later in the day, he learned that a group of students who heard about his diagnosis went to his classroom and prayed.
“People ask why some teachers keep working and doing more,” he said, “It's when you feel that you are truly helping develop these young people to be caring, responsible citizens. When you see that, it's a very rewarding experience.”
Bailey said he has a hard time teaching with the disease, but it won't slow him down.
“He is determined that if he can't beat this, he said he's going to go out giving his children something to remember,” his mother said. “As he gives his children something to remember, he gives a lot of children something to remember.”
Reid Braswell, a senior at D.H. Conley, is one of those children. He has taken three courses with Bailey during his high school career and helped him put together a video for the teacher of the year competition.
“He's the kind of teacher that would go out on a limb for you,” Braswell said. “The environment that his class has is above many other classes. It's laid-back, but you do get your academics done. He makes sure that he teaches the material so that everybody gets it.”
Braswell also said that despite Bailey's challenges, he loves life. He said he considers Bailey a second father.
“He's been through a lot with his own personal life and the death of Bo,” he said. “He's really in touch with his students, he knows what's going on in our lives, and he's there for us.”
Bailey said he wants to use the prize money to treat his wife Lynn and kids Coleman, 8, and Cassie, 3, to a vacation.
“I think out of all the time that she gives me, and my family gives me, to do what I do for Pitt County Schools, I'm liable to take some of that money and let us have a vacation,” he said. He also plans to renovate his home.
Bailey said he plans to continue as a high school science teacher even if he becomes the N.C. Teacher of the Year.
“Early on in high school I decided that I really wanted to be a high school science teacher,” he said. “I have never questioned that decision. When it's all over, I plan to continue to do the job I do in the classrooms for North Carolina.”
Jennifer White can be contacted at and 329-9571.