By Brenda Ortega
MEA Voice Editor

Kelley Cusmano is the 2024-25 Michigan Teacher of the Year. In February, the Michigan Department of Education announced the 10 Regional Teachers of the Year who are finalists for the 2025-26 MTOY to be announced in May.

Important work has been done in Michigan to attract new teachers into the profession, but without a similarly urgent focus on keeping great educators in classrooms, “all we have is a revolving door,” says Michigan Teacher of the Year (MTOY) Kelley Cusmano.

From the start of her tenure as a voice for the state’s educators this school year, the Rochester High School teacher has used her MTOY platform to elevate discussion of how to stop the flow of people prematurely leaving the world’s most important profession.

(Read an interview she gave to Chalkbeat Detroit on the subject — and more.)

Topping her list of what needs to change is the narrative around educators, Cusmano said in an interview with MEA Voice. Partly released by her district from day-to-day teaching duties, she has been visiting schools across the state.

Her biggest takeaway: “Michigan teachers are some of the most talented humans I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing. I knew we had good teachers, but going around the state I realized they’re everywhere—everywhere! From the UP all the way down to Buchanan.”

Yet the dominant message heard by most Americans is how educators are failing, she added.

“Everywhere I’ve gone, I talked with people about this rhetoric of failure and how detrimental and disheartening that can be. Teachers are working their absolute tails off to ensure that kids are valued and respected, only to have us be devalued and disrespected in the national conversation.”

She wants educators to tell their own story—in settings outside of school buildings and hours, such as businesses and civic organizations—and raise their expert voices wherever folks congregate and talk of kids, schools and education.

“We should be there explaining what actually is happening, because we’ve allowed other forces to drive a narrative that isn’t really true.”

She knows it’s not easy. “I get it—my classroom is my favorite place on earth, but we can’t stay in our comfort zone with the door closed. I think every single space should include a teacher voice.”

(Watch a five-minute documentary about Cusmano’s teaching practice.)

Another fix Cusmano advocates: better training for school administrators. A supportive principal has been key to her survival and success, but not all are equipped for such challenging, multifaceted roles.

Higher compensation would also stem the flow of experienced professionals out of classrooms. “We need to create conditions where teachers feel valued, empowered, and sustained. The profession is so important, but teachers won’t stay if they can’t sustain themselves in a career.”

Cusmano and her identical twin grew up in Jackson County spending time in their mother’s kindergarten classroom in a rural public district. Both sisters became educators: Cusmano teaches English and leadership in Rochester, and Sarah Giddings leads an alternative high school in Washtenaw County.

Cusmano believes every school should have a leadership class like one she loves teaching, where students learn skills that can’t be measured on a bubble test: how to listen, think critically, question or disagree respectfully, plan and manage a multi-step project.

She pays attention to standardized test scores but doesn’t make them her goal.

“When I put on my English-teacher brain, this is what I know: I know I’m teaching humans, that humans are imperfect, that society will always have huge questions, that my job is teaching students how to think and grapple with those. I’ll defend that to my dying day.”

She loves discovering what makes young people tick and how to hook each student in learning—a point of connection across diverse schools and educators she’s visited. “Wherever you go, kids are kids; they all want to be respected, they all want to be encouraged, they all want to be successful.”

The same can be said of those teaching them.