The State of Arkansas recognized the 2023-2024 Teacher of the Year Thursday. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Capri Salaam, a social studies teacher at North Little Rock Middle School, is a “leader among her peers.”
Salaam will take up the role from Jessica Saum, a special education teacher at Stagecoach Elementary School in Cabot, who the governor called her a “tireless advocate.”
Salaam was chosen from a group of four finalists and was announced last year during the leadership of then Gov. Asa Hutchinson. As part of being chosen, Salaam was given a $14,000 check from the Walton Family Foundation.
“She says that kids need to find fun in the classroom,” the governor said, explaining that Salaam uses hands-on lessons in her class. In one example, she taught students about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln using a mock crime scene.
Thursday also marked the 70-year anniversary of the end of the Korean War in 1953. Gov. Sanders commemorated the day at an Armistice Day Ceremony at the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History in Little Rock. She had previously proclaimed the day as Korean Veteran Armistice Day.
“To an outsider, Little Rock might seem like a strange place to honor the end of the Korean War,’ she said. “But Arkansans know the deep connection our capital city has to those people and the Republic of Korea.”
During the Korean War, the Arkansas National Guard deployed for active duty. Additionally, in 2007 a Korean War Veterans Memorial was built in Little Rock.
