Alabama Teacher of the Year Resigns: The Backstory, Part I
Ann Marie Corgill
On November 20, 2015, I drove from southern Louisiana to central Alabama in order to extensively interview Ann Marie Corgill, the 2014-15 Alabama Teacher of the Year who abruptly resigned on October 30, 2015.
The interview lasted over four hours. I decided to seek a face-to-face interview because I knew I would be asking some pointed questions, and I thought it best to do so in person.
Corgill has an intriguing story to tell, and in a series of posts, I intend to tell it, including information on Corgill’s professional history as a public school teacher in both Alabama and New York; her story about becoming Alabama’s Teacher of the Year, and the detailed circumstances surrounding her resignation, including the media attention.
For this first post, I focus on the how her story became national news.
Indeed, being the one to break the news of the sudden, unexpected departure of a state teacher of the year is quite a scoop.
Let me begin with October 31, 2015, the day that I first read about the abrupt resignation of Alabama’s 2014-15 Teacher of the Year, Ann Marie Corgill in the New York Daily News.
The Daily News article appeared to draw all of its information from this October 29, 2015, AL.com article that, in turn, draws most of its information from Corgill’s resignation letter.
Furthermore, the AL.com article also notes that Corgill “was not immediately available to comment Thursday morning [October 29, 2015].” Still, when I first read the article, I assumed that AL.com had been in touch with Corgill in order to receive a copy of the resignation from her. After all, it was Corgill’s resignation, so it seemed logical that if the media had been alerted and had a copy of the resignation letter, then it must have been Corgill who provided it.
This was not the case. In fact, when the AL.com story broke, Corgill was still in Alabama Teacher of the Year Resigns: The Backstory, Part I | deutsch29: