In her 25 years of teaching, Amanda Leonhard has never seen any of her students go on to become valedictorian or salutatorian. 

She’s never helped produce any National Merit finalists. 

In fact, for most of the students Leonhard teaches at Troy High School, simply graduating and walking across the stage over Memorial Day weekend to receive their diploma is the highlight of their high school careers. 

And Leonhard wouldn’t want it any other way.

“What I tell them is that piece of paper allows them to go out into the world and do something amazing,” Leonhard said. “Whatever they choose to do, that is what I try to help them achieve, and along the way, in those four years, we try to figure out what it is that they want to do after this. And that's a wonderful feeling for me when they are able to accomplish that. That’s what I love.” 

And for all Leonhard has done and for all the hard work she’s put in to help students who need her help the most in during her career as an intervention specialist, first at Troy Junior High School and now at Troy High School, she has been named the 2025 Troy Chamber of Commerce Educator of the Year. 

“It’s unbelievable to see my students, and now that I’m at the high school and I’m with them for four years and get to watch them grow in just those four years, and achieve all of these accomplishments, small to big, depending on where they’re at, it’s why we come every day,” Leonhard said. “It’s why I come every day.”

Troy High School Principal Alexis Dedrick said it’s Leonhard’s passion for teaching and her compassion for her students that allows her to be such an effective intervention specialist. 

“One of her strengths is that she is so calm and professional, but speaks to students with kindness and respect and clarity,” Dedrick said. “I feel like that is what helps her students understand what is expected of them, but also that they’re cared for at the same time.”

Leonhard initially received her degree in elementary education and had entered a general education classroom. It didn’t take her long to realize, however, that she had a far larger purpose. That’s when she set out to become an intervention specialist, so she could help those students she was drawn to every day.

“When I went to school, I was going into elementary education,” she said. “Then I got into a classroom, and my kids that needed extra attention, extra help, I gravitated towards them and they gravitated towards me. I got my education degree, but I also got my special education degree as well. That was my group, and I didn’t even know it yet.” 

Leonhard spends most of the school day in social studies classrooms, working with her students and their teachers to ensure the students’ success in those classrooms. She said she enjoy the opportunity to not only work with her students and their teachers, but the rest of the students in the class, as well. 

“I am still learning,” Leonhard said. “I am not a social studies teacher by any means, so what I try to do in the classroom is support the general education teacher, but make sure that my kids are thriving. That’s my goal in the general education classroom, and I love it, because I do get to work with both. So if I have, let’s say vocabulary flash cards, I hand them out to everybody. My kids see the ‘gen ed’ kids using them and say, ‘Wait a minute, maybe I do want them.’ So I feel like I’m in there for everyone, even though my first priority is my population.”

One period per day, all of the students who need additional help meet for an intervention lab, where they have the opportunity to not only work with Leonhard, but the other specialists who are in their classrooms for other subjects. 

Leonhard said she is fortunate to work with a talented team of intervention specialists who all share the same goal, which is teaching the kids who need extra help.

“My special ed team that I work with is great, and I also have to say that the high school and how they have it set up for our kids and for our intervention specialists is pretty remarkable,” Leonhard said. “So we have this intervention lab, and the lab is amazing because the kids come in and they are able to go get that extra support from the other intervention specialists who specialize in another area, and it just takes some pressure off the kids to have to know everything, and to have to have picked up all the information. We have good communication and we have good teamwork, both in my intervention group and in my social studies group.”