Congratulations to West Cabarrus High School’s Matthew Plummer, who has been named the 2023-24 Cabarrus County Schools’ Teacher Assistant of the Year.

Plummer was surprised at his school this morning with the announcement from Cabarrus County Schools Superintendent, Dr. John Kopicki and Chief Human Resources Officer, Dr. Michael Williams.

Plummer began his career as an educator in 2012, where he spent the next eleven years serving as a Teacher Assistant in 9th through 12th grade math and history classes. In 2021, he joined the staff of West Cabarrus High, where he soon became indispensable to the math department as a blended learning assistant, pulling small groups of students for individualized instruction and remediation.

In addition to his duties at West over the course of regular school hours, assisting with four challenging math classes daily, he remains at the school in the afternoons to supervise after school detention.  Plummer makes the most of that time with students, encouraging them to join in his tutoring sessions. A colleague at West observed these tutoring sessions growing, as students invited friends to take advantage of the extra instructional assistance and mentoring. Plummer always goes the “extra mile,” emailing updates to teachers and administrators regarding students’ progress and successes.

In the words of math teacher and department chair, Jennifer McCarthy, “In my experience, a TA might only influence a small/select group of students. In Mr. Plummer’s case, there are hundreds of students he has impacted through his selfless service to our school.”

Mentoring and impacting the lives of students is of vital importance to Matthew Plummer.

“When my students graduate and leave high school, they enter life knowing they were cared for and that a staff member never gave up on them.,” he said.

Congratulations, Matthew Plummer!