When Timpanogos Middle School Principal Jim Judd asked Sarah Bray’s sixth-grade history students for positive things to say about their teacher, dozens of little hands shot up.
A procession of school district administrators, co-workers and family members had visited Bray’s classroom on April 17 to present her with an oversized cardboard check. Bray was named Timpanogos Middle School’s Teacher of the Year last week as part of the nonprofit Wasatch Education Foundation’s Distinguished Educator awards, which awarded nine teachers across the school district $10,000 each.
Many of Bray’s students talked about how their teacher made learning history bearable. That’s in no small part thanks to Bray’s simulations of events like painting the Sistine Chapel or slowly dying of the Black Death. Next up will be a play version of World War I trench warfare, child soldiers throwing wads of paper at each other from across the room.
Sixth grader Kyla Chevalier offered a different compliment for Bray. She pointed to class clown Kutter Wade and said, “His jokes are funny, but her laugh is more funny.”
Eighth grader Eva Danley focused on Bray’s constant support for her students, even when she was forced to step away from teaching last year to battle breast cancer.
“I remember every single day, she would email us and check in how we were doing and make sure to help us with every single assignment. She was always there for us, even when she wasn’t actually there,” Danley said. “She is, by far, my favorite teacher.”
Bray learned she had breast cancer last January. It was a complete shock — her family had no history of breast cancer, and she’d had a mammogram two months prior that came back clear.
Bray continued teaching even as she underwent a surgery that was ultimately unsuccessful. In mid-March, her doctors advised her to not continue teaching while undergoing chemotherapy.
For Bray, passing the torch to a long-term substitute teacher was one of the hardest parts of her battle with cancer. Teaching had helped take her mind off her diagnosis.
“The kids were so kind and so nice to me, but they don’t treat you like you have cancer. I think sometimes adults want to treat you with kid gloves, and the kids, they don’t do that,” she said.
Bray completed her 16 rounds of chemotherapy at the end of July. Even though she knew she had a surgery coming up, she decided to teach the first three weeks of the 2025-26 school year so she could introduce herself to her students.
“It was super fun to show the kids my bald head,” she recalled. “I came to school with a wig on at first, and they were like, ‘Wait, you don’t have any hair?’ And so I took my wig off, and they were like, ‘What? No way!’”
Although there was a substitute to take over teaching duties, Bray emailed her students and graded their assignments to maintain relationships with them. After a successful surgery and radiation, Bray returned to teaching full time in November.
Throughout Bray’s health scare, what kept Bray going was gratitude.
“Sometimes I feel angry, upset about it, but it doesn’t feel good to be in that state all the time. I think I made a mental decision: I’m going to keep living. I’m going to choose to be happy,” she said. “I’ve got a great husband. I’ve got amazing kids. My school community was so kind to me. … I can either move forward being sad and angry all the time, or I can choose to be happy and excited about what I see around me.”
Although she graduated from Brigham Young University with a bachelor’s degree in history education in 1999, Bray wasn’t always sure she wanted to be a teacher. She’d done some student teaching at Bountiful High School after graduating and was instantly hit with self-doubt.
“I just didn’t feel like I was connecting on the level that I wanted to,” she said. “Maybe this is something that all teachers struggle with, but you don’t see your impact, really. They’re in your class for an hour, and then they leave, and then they go, and they move on.”
Bray now realizes she could have worked up her confidence and skills as an educator if she’d kept at it. But instead, she stepped away for two decades to raise her four children.
When Bray’s husband lost his job in 2020, it gave Bray the push she needed to jump back into full-time teaching. She started by teaching at Wasatch School District’s online school, Wasatch Learning Academy, before transitioning to Timpanogos Middle School, where she is now in her third year of teaching sixth and eighth grade history full-time.
Being named a Distinguished Educator has reassured Bray that returning to education was the right decision.
“I felt really excited to come to school today. I’ve chatted with all my kids, and I’m like, ‘You guys are the best. I love being here,’” she said. “It very much validates that I’ve made the right decision and this is where I’m supposed to be.”
Bray will be using the $10,000 to travel to Italy with her husband and four kids, celebrating beating cancer while geeking out over historic sites.