Making excellence normal: Minneapolis English teacher takes Minnesota profession’s top honor

When Tracy Byrd attended Washburn High School in Minneapolis in the 1980s, he preferred football to academics. His report card was full of Cs.

“​​I could do enough to get by, but just didn’t have that drive to really be great or to chase excellence,” he said.

Now, as a ninth-grade English and language arts teacher at Washburn, as well as a track and football coach, he seeks to instill that drive in his students. And he’s setting an example: On Sunday, he was named the 2024 Minnesota Teacher of the Year, the top honor for Minnesota teachers. The award is sponsored by Education Minnesota, the state’s largest educators union.

Byrd, 53, said he hoped his win—and trajectory from a C-student at Washburn to Minnesota Teacher of the Year—would show his students “you can do this.”

Dani Brandes, one of Byrd’s colleagues on Washburn’s ninth-grade English team, said she was unsurprised by the honor. “He’s able to hold kids to really high expectations as well as meeting them where they are,” she said.

“I’m just trying to normalize excellence and success,” Byrd said. “My thing is, if you’re going to get a C, why wouldn’t you get a B? And if you’re going to get a B, well, we probably should just try to get an A. It’s just that push of being the best you can be all the time in whatever it is you’re doing.”

That’s how Hattie Anderson, now a Washburn sophomore, experienced Byrd’s class.

“That’s the first time I ever got an A in English. I always got Bs,” she said. “Ever since then, I haven’t gotten a B in English.”

Because Byrd is Black, like her, Hattie said she was able to connect with him more. And his engaging personality made his class “hands down” her favorite English class.

“He made sure that he knew all his students personally,” she said. “He just connected our learning to our lives.”

Relationship building is the key to Byrd’s success, said Hattie’s mom, Heather Anderson, who’s an organizer for the Advancing Equity Coalition, an education advocacy group.

“Tracy does relationship first,” she said. “Inclusion and participation are values that just seep off of him everywhere he goes.”

For Byrd, that might mean asking a student about the television show they watched last night. Sometimes, students want to know why he’s asking.

“Maybe I want to watch it,” he said. “Maybe you can help teach me about that. And then right there, it lowers their guard and shifts the dynamic. They’re like, oh, wait, I can teach him something.”

That’s what makes Byrd stand out, said Heather Anderson.

“He learns about them so that they can learn from him,” she said. “He makes sure that they know that he is learning them while he is teaching them.”

From banking to teaching

Byrd’s path to teaching was not linear. After attending college and leaving without a degree, he got a job at the investment bank Piper Jaffray and worked his way up to the trading floor. He recounted how when his hard-of-hearing grandmother visited him at work, she loudly pointed out that he was the only Black person there.

But when Piper Jaffray was purchased by a larger bank, Byrd needed to find a new job—and without a college degree, his options were limited. A friend who taught at Wayzata High School suggested he come work as a hall monitor.

After the stress of the trading floor, where hesitating on a decision could cost someone millions of dollars, being at a high school was easy, Byrd recounted. He quickly saw how natural it was for him to connect with the students. And he saw himself in them—especially the students who would rather hang out with their friends in the halls than go to class or turn in a homework assignment.

“Wow, if someone would have just grabbed me by the collar, and said, ‘Go to class,’” he remembers thinking. “So I’m like, well, I’m going to do that. I’m just going to be that person.”

He went back to college with the motivation and drive he’d lacked earlier, determined to become a teacher. His student-teaching assignment was at Washburn with Genevieve Hollerich, now one of his colleagues on the ninth-grade English team. He started full-time at Washburn in 2017.

Hollerich recalls noticing his “unbridled enthusiasm.”

“He has such a gung-ho attitude and will try anything new,” she said. “He’s really personable, and he’s able to speak with any student. He talks to them like they’re normal people.”

“It’s rare to swing into his room after school or at lunch and not find kids there who are checking in with him or just stopping by to chat,” Brandes said. “He’s just that kind of open person who kids like to have time with.”

Byrd brings that enthusiasm to the golf course, too. When he goes golfing, he asks the golf course staff if they want to sponsor his classroom by donating a box of golf pencils. So far, he’s collected about six boxes. It’s a way to reduce barriers for students, he said.

“If we can remove that, now they have to find another reason why they can’t,” he said. “And then I’ll find another way to take that away.”

Life skills

Byrd teaches his students about dangling participles and Shakespeare. But he’s also teaching them basic skills of being human.

During the pandemic, students got used to not interacting in person, he said.

“We greet people with a hello,” Byrd said. “We shake hands, we say their name. Like, how do we communicate as humans?”

Life lessons are hidden in the literature assignments, too. In one assignment, Byrd has kids write their own scene of “Romeo and Juliet ” that could take place in a modern location: at Subway or in a coffee shop. Then he records their scenes—and that’s part of the lesson.

“What if Hollywood needs a friar? This is your big break,” he said he tells them when they ask why. “In life, you’re going to do so many things that you don’t want to do. Just be comfortable doing it.”

Gia Scavotto, a 14-year-old Washburn freshman taking Byrd’s first-hour class, said she appreciates Byrd’s energy at 7:30 in the morning.

“It’s really nice in the morning when everyone’s lazing around and not energetic, and your teacher’s hyping you up,” she said. “He’s really good at keeping the class engaged, and we have meaningful discussions.”

Gia said Byrd has taught her that making mistakes is normal, and that everyone’s perspective matters in a discussion. In one recent example, the class debated who, if anyone, was responsible for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet.

A lesson from Byrd, Gia said: “If we don’t hear everyone’s perspectives, our life will be boring.”

This fall, Byrd will have the opportunity to share his perspective with someone new. He’ll be hosting his first student teacher—a St. Olaf student who specifically requested an African American English teacher.

“I’m already getting excited for next fall,” he said. “This is how I pass it along.”

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