Chris Seanard, the Volkswagen eLab specialist at Dalewood Middle School, won the Innovation Award. Seanard began leading the VW eLab at Dalewood in 2017, and his teaching innovations are helping engage students in problem-solving and entrepreneurship. He was recognized for his support of Dalewood Middle’s successful student-run business and the school’s electric race car team. Seanard started his teaching career as a math teacher. The other finalists for the Innovation Award included Shannon Seigle, a science teacher at STEM School Chattanooga and Brittany Harris, a curriculum coach at East Brainerd Elementary. Seigle is a veteran science teacher who developed a 4-D collaborative virtual reality initiative that allows students to control university-grade microscopes as they conference with research scientists. Harris developed The Passage which is a bus that allows teachers to take tutoring to the neighborhoods where children live so that teachers, children, and parents can work together to help make children successful. The Passage has garnered national attention with features on The Ellen Show and the Steve Harvey Show on national television. The Passage was launched in 2016.