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.

Meet Virginia’s 2025 State Teacher of the Year: Avanti Yamamoto

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Virginia math teacher Avanti Yamamoto has been named her state’s 2025 Teacher of the Year. Photo Credit: Richmond

There are many outstanding educators working in our nation’s schools today, all of them deserving of special recognition. One of them is Avanti Yamamoto, a high school mathematics teacher from Hanover County, Virginia. She has been named her state’s 2025 Teacher of the Year!

Avanti teaches precalculus and International Baccalaureate math applications and interpretations at Atlee High School in Mechanicsville, Virginia. In her classroom, Avanti prioritizes critical thinking and real-world connections, ensuring that students of all abilities feel capable and supported in their learning. She says she is committed to inclusive teaching, working with students who are in special education programs all the way to advanced math courses. She also collaborates with teachers in other disciplines, working with her colleagues to design innovative math projects that blend creativity with pracical applications.

Beyond the classroom, Avanti writes a blog entitled, Beyond the Bell. She also participates in statewide presentations, where she highlights inspiring stories of educators from across the commonwealth who are making meaningful impacts and offers suggestions for creating positive environments among her colleagues. Furthermore, she has spoken internationally about educational practices, including audiences of teachers in rural Manthani, India, where she has deep personal ties.

Avanti’s passion for education was inspired by a university professor who made math accessible and exciting, Avanti says. That professor motivated her to reconsider a career in medicine, and choose instead a career path where she helps students see themselves as “math people.”

Avanti earned her Bachelor’s degree in Biomathematics from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2012. She is currently working on her Master’s degree in Education from James Madison University. In addition, she is a National Board Certified Teacher in Adolescence and Young Adulthood Mathematics. Her career as an educator spans ten years.

In addition to her State Teacher of the Year honors, Avanti has been named a Hanover Scholars Honored Educator multiple times, and she is also a finalist for Hanover County’s Innovator of the Year award.

Iowa’s Brett Hoyer: Exceptional baseball coach and math teacher

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Math teacher and Head Baseball Coach Brett Hoyer of Cedar Rapids, Iowas, was inducted into the Iowa High School Baseball Coaches’ Hall of Fame in 2024. Photo credit: The Cedar Rapids Gazette

We are hot in the middle of baseball season, so how about shining a spotlight on an exceptional baseball coach today? One such coach is Brett Hoyer, a teacher and coach at John F. Kennedy High School located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Brett’s tenure as Head Baseball Coach at spans a total of 34 seasons. He has spent 31 of them at Kennedy. In addition, he has served the school as the Offensive Coordinator for the varsity football team. And he also teaches a variety of mathematics courses at the school.

The talented coach led his baseball team, whose mascot is the Cougars, to 14 state tournaments, and to the Class 4A State Championships four times over the past three decades. There his teams captured the first-place honors twice, in 2015 and in 2024.

Brett says his work with high school students, both in the classroom and on the field, is very rewarding. “I know some people dread their jobs, and I’m not one of those people,” he said in an 2014 interview. “I really enjoy working with young people, both in the mathematics classroom and certainly coaching. It makes it awfully easy to get out of bed in the morning and come to work,” he continued. His love for the job has been rewarded. For his work as a coach, Brett was inducted into the Iowa High School Baseball Association Coaches’ Hall of Fame in 2014.

After his graduation from Regina High School, Brett earned his Bachelor’s degree in Education at Wartburg College, a private liberal arts college located in Waverly, Iowa. He was in his junior year there when he made his decision to become a math teacher and athletic coach. He earned his Master’s degree at University of Iowa located in Iowa City. He retired in 2024 after a total of 36 years in the profession.

To learn more about Brett Hoyer, watch could watch this podcast interview of him posted on YouTube.

Kansas teacher Anna C. Wait worked tirelessly for women’s suffrage

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Many classroom teachers work diligently to improve social conditions in their community. One was Kansas teacher Anna C. Wait, who worked tirelessly to win the right to vote for women. Photo credit: Public domain.

I have often noted that often excellent classroom teachers work diligently to improve social conditions in their community. One of these is Anna C. Wait, a 19th-century schoolteacher who also campaigned for the right to vote for women.

Anna was born on March 26, 1837, in Hinckley, Medina County, Ohio. She attended first the Richfield Academy and then the Twinsburg Institute. As a young woman, she married fellow educator Walter Scott, and the newlyweds moved to Missouri. The couple had a son there. When the Civil War broke out, Walter joined the Union’s 50th Volunteer Infantry, Company H. He served three years during some of the most fierce fighting of the War Between the States. During these years, Anna relocated to Ohio, where she taught school in order to support herself and her young son. When the war was won, the family reunited, and then moved first to Indiana and then to Kansas.

Once Anna settled in Kansas, she re-established her teaching career, eventually founding a normal school there to train others to become excellent teachers. She also became active in the Suffrage Movement. In 1879 Anna and fellow suffragists, Emily J. Briggs and Sarah E. Lutes, founded the local branch of the Equal Suffrage Association. In 1884 a Kansas Equal Suffrage Association was formed, and Anna served as the organization’s Vice President. In 1911 Anna was elected President of the Sixth District of the Equal Suffrage Association. Because of her efforts, legislation granting the right to vote to women was passed in the state of Kansas.

Anna C. Wait passed away on May 9, 1916, in Lincoln County, Kansas. She was 79 years old. For her tireless work as a suffragist, Anna was included in A Woman of the Century, by Charles Wells Moulton and published in 1893. To read more about this amazing pioneer teacher, see the reprint of a 1909 article printed by the Lincoln Republican.

Tuskegee Airman LeRoy Battle: Educator, musician, veteran

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High school music teacher and Tuskegee Airman LeRoy Battle authored an autobiography entitled Easier Said, published in 1995. Photo Credit: Tuskegee Airmen, Inc.

I always enjoy sharing stories about superb educators who have also distinguished themselves in areas outside the sphere of education. One of these is LeRoy Battle, a high school music teacher who was also a fine jazz musician and a heroic Tuskegee Airman.

LeRoy was born Dec. 31, 1921, in the Harlem section of New York City. His father owned a candy store, and his mother worked as a beautician and cook. While a youngster, LeRoy expressed an interest in music. He was able to take music lessons through both the Boy Scouts and the YMCA, where it was obvious he was a natural. By the time he was in the seventh grade, young LeRoy owned his own drum set. After years of learning and practice, the youthful musician was proficient enough to give music lessons as a private tutor.

As a teenager, LeRoy attended Alexander Hamilton High School in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. There he played drums in the marching band and the school orchestra. He also performed in New York’s All-City Orchestra, the Harold Cabbell Orchestra, and the Al Bounds Orchestra. By the time LeRoy was a senior, he played with legendary singer Billie Holiday at the Three Deuces Jazz Club. He also worked with Pearl Bailey. After his graduation, the youthful musician joined a traveling band and went on the road.

During WWII, Leroy was drafted. He served in the United States Army Air Corps from 1945 to 1947. Once he earned his silver wings and bars, LeRoy volunteered to join the Tuskegee Airmen. “I can’t say that I ever had any previous aspirations to be a pilot,” he once confessed. “But it sounded like a much better opportunity than anything else that was likely to come along.”  After completing the Tuskegee program at Tuskegee University, gunnery training at Tyndall Field, and bombardier training at Midland Air Force Base, LeRoy joined the 616th Squadron of the 477th Bombardment Group stationed at Freeman Army Air Force Base. For his heroism during WWII, LeRoy garnered the Congressional Gold Medal.

When the war ended, the former pilot continued his studies in music. He returned to New York City and enrolled at the Juilliard School of Music, then part of Morgan State University, a historically Black college located in Baltimore, Maryland. There he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Musical Education. He also earned a Master’s degree in Education from the University of Maryland, College Park.

In 1950, LeRoy accepted a position as a music teacher at Douglass High School in Washington, DC. That year he established a stage band for his students. Over the next eight years, The Douglass High School Band garnered first place in 14 competitions. In 1958, the students became the first African American band featured in the prestigious yearbook First Chair of America. Jet Magazine  also printed a spread on the outstanding young musicians. Before LeRoy retired in 1978, he also served as a guidance counselor and assistant principal. For 17 of those years, he also served as a drummer in the Washington Redskins Marching Band.

Post-retirement, LeRoy continued to make music. From 1992 to 1996 he did session work with jazz musicians Eva Cassidy and Chuck Brown. In addition, he worked as a motivational speaker for the Tuskegee Airmen’s Speaker’s Bureau. And, as if all that wasn’t enough, he authored an autobiography entitled Easier Said, published in 1995.

Sadly, LeRoy passed away on March 28, 2015, in Harwood, Maryland. He was 93 years old. To read more about this remarkable Chalkboard Champion, see his obituary published in the Capital Gazette.

Teacher, coach, and Columbine hero Dave Sanders

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Dave Sanders

Terry Lee Marzell examines plaque honoring slain educator Dave Sanders at the Columbine Memorial in Littleton, Colorado. Photo credit: Hal Marzell

While visiting the Denver area in 2018, I had the unique opportunity to visit the Columbine Memorial which honors the innocent lives lost in the Columbine High School massacre. There I paid homage to Dave Sanders, a truly heroic teacher who lost his life during the shooting.

Dave was born on October 22, 1951, in Eldorado, Saline County, Illinois. He was the youngest of five children. Sadly, his father passed away when Dave was only four years old. Following his father’s death, the young boy was raised by his widowed mother in Newtown, Indiana.

Even as a youngster, Dave excelled at athletics. Known for being a consistent and dependable player, he participated in basketball, baseball, and cross country. After his 1969 graduation from Fountain Central High School in Veedersburg, Dave enrolled at Nebraska Western Junior College in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, where he earned his Associate’s Degree. He then transferred to Chadron State College in Chadron, Nebraska. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Education from Chadron in 1974.

That same year, Dave accepted his first teaching position at Columbine High School in an unincorporated area of Jefferson County, Colorado, near the Denver suburb of Littleon. There he taught business classes, including typing, keyboarding, business, business law, and economics. He also worked with other teachers in the Business Department to organize career days and arrange for guest speakers to visit classes.

Dave Sanders

Chalkboard Hero, teacher, and coach Dave Sanders. Image  courtesy of Conie Sanders

But it was as a coach that Dave truly excelled. Early in his career he coached boys’ baseball, basketball, cross country, and soccer. In his later years, he coached girls’ basketball, softball, and track. In 1995, Dave’s girls’ softball team reached the Class 5A state finals, and the same year, his girls’ basketball team qualified for a coveted berth in the annual Sweet 16 Tournament. “His ability to coach was not so much about his ability to do the sport, but about his ability to analyze the mechanics of the sport, the kinesiology of it,” colleague Joe Marshall once described. “It didn’t matter what he coached. He coached kids, he didn’t coach a sport. He truly devoted himself to the athletes,” Joe continued. In addition to his coaching responsibilities for Columbine, Dave and his colleague, Rick Bath, coached basketball camps, softball tournaments, open batting cage sessions, and a B league girls’ softball program during the summers.

Dave’s career as a teacher and coach spanned 25 years. Tragically, this outstanding educator and coach was shot and killed on April 20, 1999, when two students carried out a mass shooting at Columbine High School. During the massacre, the intrepid teacher organized an evacuation of the area, led a group of approximately 200 students to safety, and warned unsuspecting teachers and students in other classrooms of the danger. He is credited with saving at least 200 lives that fateful day before he succumbed from his gunshot wounds.

For his heroism, Dave Sanders was honored in 1999 with the ESPY Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award. The same year, he was recognized by the National Consortium for Academics and Sports with the Giant Steps Award for Male Coach. You can read more about him in my second book, Chalkboard Heroes.