English teacher Dillin Randolph  and Special Education teacher Elizabeth Dribin-Khoshaba were given the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching on May 5. The Golden Apple Foundation is an Illinois non-profit organization whose goal is to encourage and honor great educators. This is the first time since the Golden Apple Foundation was created 40 years ago that co-teachers have received the award.

Randolph has been teaching for eight years, five of them at Niles West. Khoshaba has been teaching for 15 years, eight of them at Niles West. They both nominated each other for the Golden Apple Award.

Special Education director Stephanie Hentz appreciates the hard work of Randolph and Khoshaba.

“The Golden Apple Excellence in Teaching Award is a prestigious honor that only 11 teachers across the entire state of Illinois received this year. Ms. Khoshaba and Mr. Randolph are deserving of this recognition and I am thankful for their dedication to education. They are assets to Niles West students, families, colleagues and the community,” Hentz said.

Khoshaba comes from a lineage of educators. Her mom was an English teacher and later a special education paraprofessional at McCracken Middle School, and her dad was a theater teacher at Glenbrook North High School. Her oldest sister works as an instructional teaching coach at Old Orchard Junior High.

Khoshaba said that she knew when she was a child that she wanted to be a teacher. Her second-oldest sister has Down Syndrome, and Khoshaba became interested in teaching Special Education after seeing her sister’s teachers.

“I watched her teachers in special education at Niles North work with her, and I just felt so inspired by the work that they did. Even if you look at my third grade yearbook, it says I wanna grow up and be a teacher… we call it our family business,” Khoshaba said.

In high school Khoshaba’s art teacher nominated her for the Golden Apple Scholarship, which is a scholarship to encourage new educators. After receiving her scholarship, Khoshaba took summer internships and classes and in return she taught in “schools of need”. Khoshaba said it felt like a full circle moment to receive the Golden Apple Award.

“Golden Apple really made teaching feel like a calling. And I would watch a scholar teacher who had won the Golden Apple Award for excellence in teaching and just really admired all the work that they were recognized for. So winning the award is really special. You kind of feel like you’re coming full circle coming from being Golden Apple Scholar in high school to being a Golden Apple Award recipient as a teacher. This foundation has really meant a lot to me over the course of my career. And so that’s why winning the award just feels incredible, like a dream,” Khoshaba said.

Randolph was inspired to start teaching because he used to be a wrestling coach and liked helping students become better people.

“During college, I needed some money. I was an athlete in high school, so I saw that my old high school ETHS (Evanston Township High School) needed a wrestling and a football coach, and I applied, became a coach, and fell in love with, you know, helping, athletes become better people.”

Randolph said that his biggest goal in teaching is to help his students become better people. He believes that English is the most important subject since it helps people become better, whether that is having more empathy or learning how to argue better. He says he feels very validated in getting the Golden Apple Award.

“Well, obviously, what motivates me to be a better teacher is just, you know, trying to do my best to help students. But what the Golden Apple Award means to me is validation. It’s like someone is seeing all the hard work I am putting into making sure I can help students be the best they can be. Being a teacher is a thankless job,” Randolph said.

The English director Michael Kucera says he feels great pride that our school is recognizing great teachers. 

“As the director for the department, it’s a huge source of pride for me when excellent teachers get recognized. I’m so happy for Randolph and for Khoshaba, because I think it says a lot because of how the nomination process works. You’re nominated by peers and… the process in selecting a candidate is pretty pretty rigorous too,” Kucera said.