Author Archives: Terry Lee Marzell

About Terry Lee Marzell

Terry Lee Marzell holds a bachelor's degree in English from Cal State Fullerton and a master's degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from Cal State San Bernardino. She also holds a certificate for Interior Design Level 1 from Mt. San Antonio College. She has been an educator in the Corona Norco Unified School District for more than 30 years.

Kelley Cusmano named Michigan’s 2025 Teacher of the Year

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High school English teacher Kelley Cusmano has been named the Michigan State 2025 Teacher of the Year. Photo credit: Bridge Michigan

There are many exemplary teachers work in America’s public schools. One of these is Kelley Cusmano, a high school English teacher from Michigan. She has been named her state’s 2025 Teacher of the Year.

Kelley teaches at Rochester High School in Rochester, Michigan. She teaches Language Arts courses to sophomores and in Elements of Composition to juniors who read below grade level in a diverse student body. She also provides instruction in Student Leadership on her campus. In a career as an educator that has spanned 20 years, she has spent nearly 17 of them at Rochester.

Since 2022, she has also served as the Secondary English Language Arts Curriculum Consultant for Rochester Community Schools. She was selected a of Klawe Fellow for 2020-2021. In addition, in 2018 Kelley served as a member of a committee of educators who organized the Governor’s Education and Talent Summit. And currently, she serves as an at-large representative for the Michigan ASCD organization and serves on the CEO Teacher Cabinet for the Teach Plus organization. Her selection as her state’s Teacher of the Year is not the only recognition Kelley has earned. In March, 2017, she was named Adviser of the Year by the Michigan Association of Student Councils. In 2016, she was selected Emerging Leader by the Association for Curriculum Development.

It is not a surprise that Kelley chose a career in education. “From a young age, I knew that I wanted to work with kids,” she remembers. “I was inspired by spending a lot of time in my mom’s classroom—she taught kindergarten in Concord, Michigan—and my identical twin sister and I would spend hours reading books to kids, playing on the playground with them, etc.,” she continues. “However, as I got older, I actually became interested in writing/journalism as a career, so I entered Michigan State University as a journalism major. I knew I still wanted to work with kids, so I blended both of my loves and decided to become a high school English teacher,” she concludes.

Kelley earned her Bachelor’s degree in English with a Minor in History from Michigan State University in 2005. In 2009, she earned her Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction, also from Michigan State.

 

Elementary school teacher and traveling trailblazer Fanny Ruth Blum

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Elementary school teacher Fanny Blum was a traveling trailblazer in her day. Photo credit:San Bernardino Sun

There are many exceptional educators who serve as trailblazers and role models. One of these is Fanny Ruth Blum, an elementary school teacher who traveled the world as a single woman in a time period where this was not typically done.

Fanny was born on May 17, 1935, in the small town of East Lynn in West Virginia, the fourth of seven siblings. As a young child, she was a dedicated student. In high school, she studied journalism and served on the committee that produced the campus yearbook. As a young woman, she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Marshall University located in Huntington, West Virginia. She also completed the requirements for her teaching credential there.

Fanny was excited by the prospect of travel, and was certainly a pioneer in her day. As soon as she completed her education, she accepted teaching positions first in the Philippines and then in Germany. As a single woman in her 20’s, she travelled throughout Asia and Europe, where she celebrated the New Year at the Shangri-La in Singapore. She once went skiing with actor rock Hudson and she also once shook hands with John F. Kennedy.

After returning to the United States, Fanny taught in a small mining town in Northern California. There she met and married Caroll Arthur Blum, an engineer. The couple relocated to Salt Lake City, Sacramento, and Stockton. It was while in Stockton that Fanny and Carol expanded their family to include three children. In the 1980s, Carol was offered a professional opportunity to travel to Saudi Arabia, and the Blums readily agreed. During these years, the family enjoyed tours of Europe and Africa.

After Carol passed away in 1983, Fanny returned to California with her children, settling in Placencia and accepting a position as a kindergarten teacher. Once she retired, she moved to Murrieta, California, where she lived until her passing on January 20, 2025, at the age of 89.

 

Iowa’s Grace Allen Jones: She worked to educate to Black youth

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Iowa’s Grace Allen Jones championed greater educational opportunities for Black students in her home state, Missouri, and Mississippi. Photo credit: Public Domain.

During Black History Month, we shine a spotlight on numerous African American educators. Today, we spotlight Grace Allen Jones, a teacher from Iowa who worked tirelessly to provide educational opportunities for African American youth in her home state, in Missouri, and in Mississippi.

Grace was born on January 7, 1876, in Keokuk, Iowa. Unlike many African Americans of her day, her parents were educated and financially well-off. As a young girl, Grace attended Burlington High School in Burlington, Iowa. There she earned her diploma in 1891. Following high school, she attended Burlington Normal School from 1894 to 1895.

After she earned her college degree, Grace spent three years in Missouri teaching at schools in Bethel and Slater. In 1902, she returned to Iowa and founded a vocational school for African American students. She named the school the Grace M. Allen Industrial School for Colored Youth.

When the school closed in 1906, Grace enrolled in public speaking courses a the Chicago Conservatory of Music. Once she completed her courses in Chicago, Grace worked as a fundraiser and public speaker, advocating for better educational opportunities for all the students in her community.

After her marriage to fellow-educator Laurence Jones, Grace accepted a teaching position at Piney Woods Country Life School in Rankin County, Mississippi. At this school, students were offered courses in agriculture, carpentry, dairy farming, and construction. To help support the school, Grace organized and led several student choir groups on fundraising tours across the South, the Midwest, and the East. The schools’ Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, the Cotton Blossom Singers, and the International Sweethearts of Rhythm were just three of several choral groups that Grace organized.

In addition to her classroom and fundraising responsibilities, Grace actively participated in clubs meant to advance the status of women and, more specifically, women of color. Those groups also worked to improve child care, to teach African American history, to start libraries for African American children, and to provide resources so that physically handicapped African American children could learn. In addition, she helped start an American Red Cross organization for African Americans, and she served as President of the Mississippi State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs from 1920 to 1924. Later she served as a statistician for the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs in 1925.

Sadly, this Chalkboard Champion passed away of complications from pneumonia on March 2, 1928, in Piney Woods. She was only 52 years old. To read more about Grace Allen Jones, see this article published about her by Piney Woods School.

Fannie Coppin: Teacher, principal, community activist, columnist, and missionary

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Fannie Coppin, born into slavery, eventually became a highly successful teacher, principal, community activist, columnist, and missionary. Photo credit: Public Domain

This February, during Black History Month, we are honoring exemplary African American educators in our nation’s history. Today, we shine a spotlight on Fanny Coppin, an outstanding educator from Washington, DC.

Fanny was born on October 15, 1837, the daughter of slaves. When she was 12 years old, her aunt purchased her freedom for $125. She moved to Newport, Rhode Island, where she worked as a servant for the author George Henry Calvert. During these years, she used some of her earnings to hire a private tutor to teach her for three hours each week.

In 1860, the same year the Civil War erupted, Fanny enrolled at Oberlin College in Ohio. Oberlin was the first college in the United States to accept both Black and female students. At first, Fanny enrolled in the “ladies’ course,” but the next year, she switched to the more rigorous “gentlemen’s course.” As the Civil War years came to an end, Fanny founded a night school in Oberlin where she educated newly-freed enslaved people.

Once she earned her degree in 1865, this enterprising young educator accepted a position as a high school teacher at the Institute for Colored Youth (ICY) in Philadelphia. There she taught courses in Greek, Latin, and mathematics. Within a year she was promoted to principal of the Ladies Department. By 1869 Fanny had become principal of the entire institute, making her the first African American woman to wear the title of school principal. She held this position until 1906. In all, she invested 37 years of her life at the school.

In addition to her work at ICY, Fanny founded homes for working and poor women. She also published columns defending the rights of women and African Americans in local Philadelphia newspapers. Throughout her life, she was politically active and frequently spoke at political rallies.

In 1881 Fanny married the Rev. Levi Jenkins Coppin, and in 1902 the couple traveled to South Africa where they founded the Bethel Institute, a missionary school which emphasized self-help programs.

Fannie Coppin passed away on January 21, 1913, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was 76 years old. In 1926, a teacher training school in Baltimore, Maryland, was named the Fanny Jackson Coppin Normal School in her memory. Today, this school is known as Coppin State University.