"This is just a highlight of my life."

That's how Capital High School Teacher Cynthia Phillips describes her trip to Washington, D.C. on Thursday.  She was sitting in the front row for President Barack Obama's Town Hall Meeting, an online Town Hall Meeting that allowed the President to take questions directly from citizens.

Phillips says she was impressed.  "His charisma, the way he scanned the room, the way he talked with people like we were just all everyday people, sitting down at the table, talking about issues."

She was chosen to attend the Town Hall Meeting as a member of the West Virginia American Federation of Teachers.

Phillips had planned a question about No Child Left Behind for the President but did not get to ask the question because President Obama answered it as part of another response.

"He said that No Child Left Behind punished schools and that's not what we want to do," Phillips told MetroNews Affiliate 58-WCHS in Charleston after the Town Hall Meeting.  "He said he wanted to help schools and to bring about help with getting better teachers, better resources and those types of things."

President Obama says education is an important part of building a stronger economy.

"He hit home in a couple of places about our school system in that it's been a long time, a long time coming that someone here in D.C. listened to us and felt that we're important.  He feels like we're the foundation of a good economy."