Healthcare teacher Jacqueline Burgess awarded McIntosh’s Teacher of the Year

Yasemin Kalpakci, Features Editor

Oct 17, 2025

Principal Amy Hammock, Assistant Principal Bob Rice, TOTY Healthcare teacher Jacqueline Burgess, Assistant Principal Nicole Guest. Photo courtesy of McIntosh High School.

On Friday, Oct. 10 McIntosh announced Healthcare and Medical Terminology teacher Jacqueline Burgess as the winner of the 2025-2026 Teacher of the Year award. Each year the staff at McIntosh vote on a recipient for the Teacher of the Year award. Burgess shared her excitement over the win.

“I was so excited. There was a visceral reaction. I was sweating, I don’t know if it was emotions or that my sympathetic nervous system was on overdrive because I was so excited,” Burgess said.

Even as time has passed since being awarded Burgess still shares the same joy and excitement as the first time she received the award.

TOTY Healthcare teacher Jacqueline Burgess celebrates with her seventh period Healthcare Essentials class. Photo courtesy of McIntosh High School.

“I’m still so excited. It hasn’t really set in yet, because I just feel like I’m so honored because [McIntosh] is such a great school. This is such an amazing school. Like to even get a job here, to be hired here, is an honor much less something like this [the award],” Burgess said.

Burgess credits her win to her love for the staff and the help she has given them.

“The teachers vote and so I’d like to think that [since] my love language is acts of service, somewhere along the way I have loved on the teachers just as much as I have loved on my students in the best way that I can to maybe make them vote for me,” Burgess said.

Burgess’ win reinforced her belief that she is in the right career choice for her, especially after years of studying and working in a career field that she did not enjoy. Burgess has big goals for herself, some of which include helping students pick the right career paths for themselves by listening to their “inner voice.”

“I’m always trying to find new, creative ways for engagement because this is an elective and it’s a choice to be in this room. I really feel like my students are my stakeholders and I’m just trying to give them the best experience that they can have and if that ignites a passion for healthcare then that’s awesome and if it doesn’t that’s okay too. That’s one less thing that they have to worry about when trying to finalize what career they want to be in some way,” Burgess said.

Watch Burgess’ reaction to winning here.

Donate to The Trail - The Student News Site of McIntosh High School

$740

$2000

Contributed

Our Goal

Your donation supports the student journalists of McIntosh High School. Your contribution allows us to cover our annual website hosting costs, to have access to Reuters images for international and national news and feature stories, to purchase more and updated equipment such as cameras, lenses, and digital voice recorders, and continuing education for staff, such as SNO training and MediaNow! editorial leadership training.

About the Contributors

Yasemin Kalpakci, Features Editor

Yasemin Kalpakci is a senior at McIntosh High School and currently serves as the Features Editor for the McIntosh Trail. She joined the Trail staff in early 2024 and was part of the staff that won the SNO Distinguished Site Award in both the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years. In addition to her journalism accomplishments, Kalpakci has also achieved success in other areas. She won a nation-wide best of SNO award for her story, “McIntosh honors Vinny, the service dog of teacher and veteran Christopher Judy.” Kalpakci also won an All-Georgia award for her Critical Review, “Opinion: ‘I was a bad girl’ but was she?” and a Superior in Health/Medical Reporting with, “SOS: ending the stigma around finding help.” In addition to her journalism accomplishments, Kalpakci has also achieved success in other areas. Her art has been published on the board of education in the 2023-2024 school year. Kalpakci has been involved in the Beta Club since elementary school and is an active volunteer at animal shelters and various school activities. She was instrumental in creating her old school’s World Food Club, promoting cultural exchange through food. Outside of school, Kalpakci enjoys listening to Lana Del Rey, reading AO3, binge-watching Gilmore Girls, and spending hours on Pinterest. Like many high school students, she’s uncertain about her future plans but hopes to figure it out soon.

Shanon Woolf, CJE, Adviser

Shanon Woolf, CJE, advises two award-winning journalism programs at McIntosh: the online news site The Trail and the Legend yearbook. Woolf was the GSPA Adviser of the Year in 2022 and was named a JEA Rising Star in 2020. In addition to serving GSPA on the Teacher Advisory Council, she serves on the JEA Scholastic Journalism Week Committee. She earned her Certified Journalism Educator credential in April 2021 and was awarded Star Teacher at McIntosh High School in May 2021. She was also the Georgia Scholastic Press Association’s First Year Adviser of the Year in 2019 and has been a member of the JEA’s Scholastic Journalism Week committee since 2019. Woolf adjudicates yearbooks and online news sites for New Jersey, Florida, Nebraska and NorCal, among others, and presents at the National Scholastic Press Association’s fall conventions, for Georgia Scholastic Press Association and for Jostens, both at the state and national level. Woolf loves Coke Zero and helping student journalists and photographers hone their craft. She collects smushy pennies from her travels and polydactyl cats who need adopting.