Category Archives: Education

Victoria Soto: A Chalkboard Hero of Sandy Hook Elementary

Posted on by
Reply

First grade teacher Victoria Soto lost her life while protecting her students from during the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Photo credit: My Hero Project

It is a sad fact that a number of American educators have been put in the unenviable position of protecting their students from active shooters. They are sometimes injured or killed while sheilding their students. One of these teachers was Victoria Soto, a first grade teacher who was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting on Dec. 14, 2012.

Victoria Soto was born on November 4, 1985, in Bridgeport, Connecticut.  In 2003, she graduated from Stratford High School located in Stratford, Connecticut. Following her graduation, she enrolled in Eastern Connecticut State University. There she earned a dual Bachelor’s degree in History and Education, with honors. She also took courses towards her Master’s degree at Southern Connecticut State University.

Once she earned her teaching credentials, Victoria accepted a position as an elementary teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut. On December 14, 2013, Victoria was engaged in teaching her first grade class when gunman Adam Lanza burst into the school wielding several weapons and looking for victims. He started shooting. Staff and students heard Lanza discharging his weapons over the school public address system. By the time the gunman made his way to her classroom, Victoria had been able to hide her children in a closet. When confronted by Lanza, Victoria told him the students had been sent to the school gym. But some of the children were too afraid to stay hidden. When they ran from their hiding place, the shooter began to fire at them. In a supreme act of heroism, Victoria threw herself between Lanza and the children. In so doing, she sustained a fatal gunshot wound.

Victoria was only 27 years old when she was killed. Her career spanned five years. The Chalkboard Champion was laid to rest in Union Cemetery Stratford in Fairfield County, Connecticutt.

In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded Victoria a Presidential Citizens Medal posthumously. The medal honors Americans who have performed “exemplary deeds of service” for their country or fellow citizens. The medal is is the government’s second-highest civilian award.

Read more about this amazing educator in this online article entitled “The Teacher as Hero.”

Middle school educator Becky Haenfler named SD’s 2026 State Teacher of the Year

Posted on by
Reply

Becky Haenfler, a middle school English Language Arts teacher, has been named South Dakota’s 2026 State Teacher of the Year. Photo credit: Makenzie Huber, South Dakota Searchlight

Many outstanding teachers work with our nation’s young people in pubic schools. All of them are dedicated and hardworking, and occasionally some of them are singled out for special recognition. One of these is Becky Haenfler, a middle school teacher from South Dakota. She has been named her state’s 2026 Teacher of the Year.

Becky’s career as an educator spans 19 years. Currently, she teaches Language Arts to students in fifth through seventh grades at Avon Middle School in rural Avon, South Dakota. In fact, she works in the very same classroom she attended as a child. Her lessons are known to be engaging and meaningful, which helps her students make real-world connections. She also coaches basketball, volleyball, and track on her campus.

The honored educator is well-respected in her school district, and beyond. “Becky Haenfler has a wonderful reputation at Avon School District as being an engaging educator whose teaching style gets kids excited about reading,” declares South Dakota Secretary of Education Joseph Graves. “She is committed to making sure all of her students have the supports they need to read novels that challenge and inspire them, and that experience turns them into lifelong readers,” he continues.

Ever since she was a child, Becky has dreamed of becoming a teacher, she recently revealed. “I don’t remember wanting to do anything else,” she confesses. “Initially, it was having a good experience going to school in Avon. Having a great experience as a student made me want to come back to school to keep doing this,” she continued.

Becky earned her Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and her Master’s degree as a Reading Literacy Specialist in 2024, both from the University of South Dakota.

To learn more about Becky Haenfler, click on this link to an interview with her published by the South Dakota State Department of Education.

Reading Specialist Jenna DiEleuterio named Delaware’s 2026 Teacher of the Year

Posted on by
Reply

Jenna DiEleuterio, a middle school reading interventionist from Delaware, has been named her state’s 2026 Teacher of the Year. Photo credit: Wilmington University News

There are so many outstanding educators working with our nation’s young people who are deserving of recognition. Alas, not all of them receive the accolades they should receive. Some them, however, do earn honors they are due. One of them is Jenna DiEleuterio, a middle school reading interventionist from Delaware.

Jenna teaches at Talley Middle School in the Brandywine School District located in Wilmington. She works with students in grades six through eight there.

“As a reading specialist, I use literacy to give students voice and agency,” declares Jenna. “When they build a strong relationship with reading, they can access content, make informed decisions, and express themselves with confidence,” she continues. “I want every student to feel seen and heard, and to know that I care and our school community cares. Their voices matter,” she concludes.

In addition to her work with young people, Jenna serves as the facilitator and pioneer of the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) team at her school and throughout her community’s secondary schools. In this role, she brings educators together to analyze data, evaluate interventions, and ensure instruction is tailored to meet the needs of every student.

Jenna earned her Bachelor’s degree in Elementary and Special Education from Elizabethtown College. She earned her Master’s degree in Reading and her PhD in Teacher Leadership, both from Wilmington University. She is also a graduate of Leadership Delaware, an organization committed to cultivating strong and diverse leadership. Her career as an educator spans 15 years.

Her selection as Delaware’s 20276 Teacher of the Year is not the only recognition Jenna has earned. In 2024 she received Claymont Lion Club’s Humanitarian Award for her Peace Walk Initiative, which brings together students, families, educators, and community organizations to build stronger connections. That same year, she earned a Compostela certificate for completing El Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile pilgrimage across Spain.

During Women’s History Month, we recognize teacher and suffragist Bertha Boschulte

Posted on by
Reply

Teacher, principal, and public health official Bertha Boschulte of the Virgin Islands was also a tireless women’s suffragist. Photo Credit: Public Domain

Many talented educators devote their considerable energy to social issues. One of these was Bertha Boschulte, a teacher, principal, and public health worker from the Virgin Islands who dedicated herself to women’s suffrage in her home territory.

Bertha was born on March 30, 1906, in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. After her graduation from Charlotte Amalie Junior/Senior High School, she taught for one year. Then she moved to the mainland, where she settled in the state of Virginia and enrolled in the Hampton Institute. There she earned her Bachelor’s degree, with distinction, in English and Mathematics in 1929.

Following her graduation from college, Bertha returned to the Virgin Islands, where she accepted a teaching position at her alma mater, Charlotte Amalie High School. During the next few years, while teaching and serving as the secretary of the St. Thomas Teachers Association, Bertha became a champion of the women’s suffrage movement. She was one of numerous women teachers who attempted to register to vote and had been denied. The teachers’ union filed a lawsuit, and earned a ruling in their favor.

By 1938, Bertha had been promoted to be principal of the Charlotte Amalie school, but after a few years, she decided to return to the United States, where she enrolled at Columbia University’s Teachers College. There she earned her Master’s degree in Educational Administration in 1945. After securing her teaching credential in 1946, Bertha accepted a teaching position at New York’s PS 81.

While in New York, the forward-thinking educator became involved with the International Assembly of Women, a conference organized by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to advance the goals of political equality for women and support the establishment of the United Nations. In 1947, Bertha returned to the Virgin Islands, where she worked with colleagues to establish a teachers’ institute to offer training to educators who wanted to improve their instructional practices.

Bertha launched a new chapter of her life in 1950 when she relocated to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to pursue a Master’s degree in Public Health. The following year, her goal achieved, she returned to the Virgin Islands, where she was appointed the Director of the Statistical Service for the territory’s Health Department. She served in that department until 1963. In 1964, this amazing former teacher was elected to the Legislature of the Virgin Islands, where she served one two-year term as a Senator. In 1969, Bertha was appointed to serve on the Commission on the Status of Women, and in 1970, she was elected to the Board of the Territorial Department of Education, where she was served as the Chairperson.

For her tireless work as an educator, public health official, and women’s suffragist, Bertha was named Woman of the Year by the Federation of Business and Professional Women in 1965. In 1981, the Bertha C. Boschulte Middle School in Bovoni was named in her honor. This Chalkboard Hero passed away on August 18, 2004. She was 98 years old.

During Women’s History Month, we recognize Alaska pioneer teacher Carrie McLain

Posted on by
Reply

Alaska teacher Carrie McLain was a pioneer in the classroom at the turn of the century. Photo credit: Pubic Domain

During Women’s History Month, we pay homage to America’s pioneers in the classroom, including the many teachers who worked Alaska’s wilderness territories. One of them was Carrie McLain, who taught in Nome, Alaska, at the beginning of the 19th century.

Carrie was born on January 26, 1895, in Astoria, Long Island, New York. When she was just a child of ten, her father moved Carrie and her four siblings to the fledgling village of Nome on the ice-crusted coast of northwestern Alaska. There she grew to adulthood and became a young teacher at a pioneer school on the Seward Penninsula. During those years, she also married and reared a family of one son and three daughters. She lived and taught through a rugged existence on the frigid Alaskan frontier, and she even taught through the Klondike Gold Rush.

This Chalkboard Champion passed away on May 30, 1973, at Palmer Pioneers Home, and was buried in Nome. The city of Nome dedicated a community museum in her honor. The Carrie McLain Museum highlights the history of Nome and Western Alaska. Many of the institution’s more than 15,000 artifacts are relates to gold-rush days, including racks of mining equipment, historical documents, and photo albums.

Carrie tells the fascinating story of her provincial life in Alaska in Pioneer Teacher: Turn of the Century Classroom in Remote Northwestern Alaska. Anyone interested in learning more about her experiences should read the slender volume—it’s only 70 pages, including photographs. The book, published in 1970, can be found on amazon at this link: Pioneer Teacher. She also wrote Gold Rush Nome, which is only 46 pages in length, published in 1969, can also be found on amazon.  In addition to Carrie’s text, the volume contains 23 pages of black and white photographs.