Central Junior High mathematics teacher Jennifer Clarkson gets high fives from students Seth Winchester, left, and Roscoe Bradt after it was announced Tuesday that she was awarded a Lawrence Horizon Award during a school assembly.

Jennifer Clarkson is winner of this year’s Horizon Award, given annually by the Lawrence school district to exemplary novice teachers entering their second year of service.

Clarkson, who teaches math at Central Junior High School, received the award — and the $250 check that goes with it, courtesy of KU Credit Union — during a schoolwide assembly Tuesday afternoon at Central, 1400 Mass.

The money will be used, in part, to help Clarkson buy books, games and other materials for the math program, both for her seventh-grade classroom and for after-school programs.

After receiving the award, Clarkson struggled to stop smiling as she accepted congratulations from her fellow teachers, administrators and school board President Rich Minder, among others.

But the true reward, Clarkson said, comes in working with students. “Anytime that you can have a kid who struggles with math and just ‘gets it’ — just even for one lesson — it just means the world,” she said.

Clarkson now will be the district’s nominee for the statewide Horizon Award, given by the Kansas Department of Education.