Seventh-grade math teacher Julie Dougherty at Berryhill School is the Northwest Learning Community Teacher of the Year and a finalist for CMS Teacher of the Year. 

Like so many others, Dougherty credits a fellow teacher for inspiring her to become an educator. “For me, it was Mrs. Corum, the health occupations teacher from Morehead High School in Eden, N.C.,” said Dougherty. “I wanted to be that teacher whose passion and energy was so contagious that it caused students to fall in love with learning.” 

Dougherty took Mrs. Corum’s lessons to heart and applied them in college, earning a bachelor's degree in psychology from UNC Asheville and a master's degree in middle grades education from Gardner-Webb University. Dougherty was awarded Outstanding Secondary Mathematics Teacher 2021 from the North Carolina Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. She was a valuable member of the CMS Instructional Leadership Team from 2015-2017 and was honored with the Rookie Teacher of the Year Award in 2012 from Guilford Middle School in Greensboro. 

Outside the classroom, Dougherty enjoys hiking, traveling and reading. “We are lucky to have Julie Dougherty in the Northwest Learning Community,” said Acquanetta Edmond, Northwest Learning Community superintendent. “She teachers students how to be leaders and how to be accountable for their actions. She serves as a school leader by coaching her fellow educators in mathematics and serving on multiple schoolwide teams.” 

Dougherty wants her students to remember her as someone who taught them that we all have unique and valuable contributions to make to this world.

“Without those contributions, we would just be boring and no one wants that,” she said.