Ashley Culley, the director of orchestras at Dodgen Middle School, has been named the 2026 Educator of the Year by the Georgia Chapter of the American String Teachers Association (ASTA). 
According to a release from the Cobb County School District, the award “recognizes her commitment to music education and the lasting impact she has made on students across Cobb Schools.”
Culley is in her 21st season at Dodgen, and before that taught three years at Kell High School. In addition to her classroom and Dodgen orchestra duties, she is a co-director of the Upbeat! String Camp summer program for middle- and high school students and that is based at Dodgen and Awtrey Middle School.
“I love seeing when students have their ‘a-ha’ moment, and things start to click,” Culley said in the Cobb school district release. “When something that might have seemed overwhelmingly difficult at first becomes second nature to them, it is always exciting to see.”
For more about Culley’s honor, click here.
At the start of the current 2025-26 school year, she was interviewed by The Orchestra Teacher podcast about her work and her career.
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