ESSEX, Md. — Over 900 students sat in the auditorium of Kenwood High School for what they thought was just another assembly.
They quickly realized that wasn't the case when a few guests arrived: the Ravens cheerleaders, the Ravens mascot Poe, and Ravens linebacker Roquan Smith.
WATCH: Ravens select Kenwood high school teacher as the 2025 touchdown for teachers winner
Then in came Andrew Goldbeck, who the Ravens have picked as its 2025 Touchdown for Teachers winner.
"It's fun, it's exciting, it just shows that like a lot of the things that we have done to move our school forward a little bit is kind of like working," says Andrew Goldbeck.
The Ravens, along with the entire school, recognized Goldbeck for going above and beyond to create a better environment for students at Kenwood High School.
Something Roquan Smith says changes students' lives.
"It's amazing to see the type of impact he's made in so many different students' lives and like the way they celebrate him, and I can only imagine it's just the individuals that's in this area right now, but I'm sure there's countless others who feel this same exact way, but it's just not here during this moment, so it's amazing, and I just speak from experience. I know there's many teachers that I've had throughout my childhood, high school and things that I'll be like, Wow, I'll cherish this for the rest of my life," says Roquan Smith.
Goldbeck was a teacher for eight years, but this year was his first year as the school's community facilitator, and in that time he has worked to change a negative stigma he says is placed on the high school.
"Sometimes an area focuses on a couple of kids that are making poor decisions, and that's not fair to the majority of our kids. So I felt like this: I want to be like a champion, uh, of those kids having that voice, and I think today in the audience, you know, in the auditorium, there was a lot of those kids," says Goldbeck.
He has also created programs that help homeless students and their families outside of the classroom by providing a way for them to have clean laundry.
"So we're trying to expand, um, getting a washer and dryer to do that for a couple of kids now we kind of had a little pilot program this year, um, but we really want to expand that to have a few more," he says.
And Andrew Goldbeck says next year he plans to do even more to help students make the best of their time at Kenwood High School.
