Tammy Hunter and Karen Toovalian receive Golden Apple Awards

Walled Lake Consolidated Schools’ Student Services secretaries, Tammy Hunter and Karen Toovalian, received Golden Apple Awards at the February 6, 2025 Board of Education meeting.

Hunter and Toovalian were nominated by Student Services supervisor, Patti Harthun, for being consistently positive and helpful in enrolling students, as well as researching ways to help the McKenny-Vento students in the district.

Hunter and Toovalian help parents with the enrollment process by assisting them with a variety of documents and securing translated documents for families when necessary using Google Translate, our translator program or an ELD paraeducator.

“Karen and Tammy consistently come in early, stay late, and work weekends to make sure students are enrolled efficiently and accurately,” said Harthun. “They work tirelessly to get as many kids into the classroom by the first day of school, knowing this is so important to incoming students who are new to the district.”

“They assist building secretaries daily to help make their jobs easier and answer their questions and concerns, and they are always available to train staff on either new procedures or ones of which they are not aware,” added Harthun. “They are forward-thinking and try to find ways to make all of our jobs more efficient by creating new forms and procedures and updating forms so parents have a better understanding of what is needed from them.”

On top of their enrollment and registration responsibilities, Hunter and Toovalian also play a huge role in supporting our McKinney Vento students. They make sure those students have everything they need to be successful in school, even securing rides to and from school.

“Karen and Tammy’s efforts to provide students with heavy-duty backpacks, winter clothes, shoes, and school supplies play a critical role in helping these students feel that despite their home life challenges, they do not feel ‘different’ or ‘less than’ their classmates,” said Harthun.