Immigrant and progressive educator Leonard Covello

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Leonard Covello

Teacher Leonard Covello, the immigrant who developed progressive educational reforms. Photo credit: Ralph Morse, TiimeLife Images

Leonard Covello was just nine years old in 1896 when he immigrated to New York City with his family from the little village of Avigliano in southern Italy. But he grew up to become one of America’s greatest educators, developing and instituting progressive community-centered educational programs. These programs are characterized by close links between the school, the home, and the community, and are still a model for today’s educational institutions.

As an immigrant student himself, Leonard understood the unique needs of this particular group of students, and, as an Italian immigrant, he recognized the specific conflicts between the home and the family experienced by most Italian immigrant children. Drawing from his personal experience, Leonard was able to develop innovative school programs that allowed Italian immigrant students to succeed in American public schools in ways they had never realized before. His observations and solutions are still applicable to certain groups of students we find in today’s classrooms.

You can read more about this innovative teacher and principal in my book, Chalkboard Champions: Twelve Remarkable Teachers Who Educated America’s Disenfranchised Students, available from amazon at the following link: Chalkboard Champions. You can also learn more about this remarkable educator in Teacher with a Heart: Reflections on Leonard Covello and Community by Vito Perrone. This volume is available from amazon at the following link: Teacher with a Heart. In addition to analysis by Perrone, the book contains lengthy excerpts from Leonard Covello’s autobiography, now out of print.

Nebraska teacher Katie Mace garners prestigious Milken Educator Award

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English teacher Katie Mace of Lyons, Nebraska, has garnered a prestigious 2022 Milken Educator Award. Photo Credit: Milken Family Foundation

I always enjoy sharing an inspirational story about a talented educator who has earned accolades for her work in the classroom. Today’s story is about Katie Mace, a high school English teacher from the small town of Lyons in northeast Nebraska. Katie has garnered a prestigious 2022 Milken Educator Award.

Katie earned her Bachelor’s degree in Secondary English from the University of Nebraska in 2003. She earned her Master’s degree in English Curriculum and Instruction from Wayne State College in 2011. She earned a second Master’s degree in Counseling from Creighton University in Nebraska in 2014.

Katie teaches English and Speech at Lyons-Decatur Northeast’s High School in Lyons. Her innovative instructional practices keep students engaged and excited as they develop their reading and language arts skills. For example, during a unit on medieval literature and culture, students invite staff and peers to a medieval feast. In another activity, her students make pitches for fictional businesses ideas in the style of the television show “Shark Tank.” And she regularly encourages her students to enter local and national writing contests. As a result of Katie’s instructional strategies, her students regularly score at the top of state averages on the English section of the ACT, and former students credit her with their college and career successes.

The honored educator also goes to great lengths to care for students’ social-emotional needs. Putting her Master’s degree in Counseling to work, she spends one period each day working with students individually and in small groups.

The Milken Educator Awards have been described by Teacher Magazine as the “Oscars of Teaching.” In addition to a $25,000 cash prize and public recognition, the honor includes membership in the National Milken Educator Network, a group of more than 2,700 exemplary teachers, principals, and specialists from all over the country who work towards strengthening best practices in education. To learn more, click on Milken Educator Awards.

English teacher Brittney Miller also serves in the Nevada State Assembly

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Middle School English teacher Brittney Miller also serves her community in the Nevada State Assembly. Photo Credit: Brittney Miller

Many talented classroom teachers also serve as successful politicians. One of these is Brittney Marie Miller, a middle school English teacher who currently serves in the Nevada State Assembly.

Brittney was born in 1974 in Detroit, Michigan. Her father, a former Marine who served in Viet Nam, was a police sergeant in Detroit. Her mother, a former civilian employee for the US Army Tank Arsenal, was a registered nurse.

Brittney earned her Bachelor’s degree in 1996 in Criminal Justice from Saginaw Valley State University located in University Center, Michigan. In 1999 she earned her first Master’s degree, in Public Administration from Oakland University located in the cities of Auburn Hills and Rochester Hills, Michigan. In 2011 she earned her second degree, in Teaching from Sierra Nevada College, Incline Village, Nevada.

For several years after earning her degrees, Brittney channeled her considerable energy in prisoner re-entry programs, training programs, and employment services. But for the past 11 years, she has been teaching Language Arts at Canarelli Middle School in the Clark County School District in Nevada. “After years developing programs in public schools, work force development, and prisoner re-entry, I knew that becoming a teacher was one more way I could serve,” Brittney once said. “Indeed, I reduced my salary by over a third when I became a teacher, but that’s how passionate and devoted I am to service. I believe strongly in education. To build a future, we must invest in our children first,” she added.

In 2017, Brittney was elected to represent District 5 in the Nevada State Assembly, where she still serves. She succeeded Republican Assemblyman Erv Nelson who resigned from his post to run for the Nevada State Senate. As a representative, Brittney is a member of four committees: Education; Corrections, Parole, and Probation; Health and Human Services; and Judiciary.

To learn more about this accomplished Chalkboard Champion, check out this interview by Nevada Public Radio or her website at Miller4ThePeople.

MO PE and Health teacher Jean Kuczka slain in school shooting

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PE and Health teacher Jean Kuczka was slain in a school gun violence incident in St. Louis, Missouri, on Monday, Oct. 24, 2022. Photo Credit: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Once again, the educational community mourns the loss of another teacher to school gun violence. Physical education teacher Jean Kuczka, age 61, was fatally wounded in an attack at Central Visual & Performing Arts High School located in St. Louis, Missouri. She had been a teacher on the campus since 2008.

As a young woman, Jean attended Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri, on a field hockey scholarship. There she studied physical education and played on the school’s field hockey team. In fact, she was a member of the university’s 1979 national championship team.

Jean’s college  coach, Rhonda Ridinger, declared the fallen educator is a hero. Ridinger, who coached Jean at Missouri State from 1979 to 1982, says Jean loved her team like her family, just like the students she put first on Monday. “I think she did what a loving, seasoned teacher would do, protect the kids,” remarked Ridinger. Jean’s daughter, Abigail Kuczka, agrees. “My mom loved kids,” Abigail asserts. “I know her students looked at her like she was their mom,” Abigail continued, adding that her mother was killed while protecting her students.

After earning her Bachelor’s degree in Education, Jean began teaching physical education at Seven Holy Founders in Affton, Missouri. For the next 16 years, Jean developed a physical education program for the K-8 students. When she decided she wanted to concentrate on junior high school students, Jean transferred to Carr Lane Middle School in St. Louis in 2002. At first, she taught physical education, but later she decided she wanted to teach courses in health education, so she developed a health ed program for the middle school. Once health became a state-required course at the high school level, Jean transferred to Central Visual & Performing Arts High School, where she has taught Health, Personal Finance, and Physical Education since 2008.
Jean Kuczka was the mother of five and the grandmother of six.

Teacher Elaine Goodall Eastman: the “Sister to the Sioux”

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Teacher Elaine Goodall Eastman, who described herself as a Sister to the Sioux, established a day school on a Sioux Indian reservation in the territory of South Dakota. Photo Credit: Boston University

Many talented and dedicated educators have devoted themselves to working for disenfranchised groups of students. One of these was Elaine Goodale Eastman, who often described herself as a “Sister to the Sioux.”

When she was just a young woman, Elaine, originally from Massachusetts, established a day school on a Sioux Indian reservation in the territory of South Dakota. Contrary to prevailing opinion of her day, she believed very strongly that it was best to keep Native American children at home rather than transport them far away from their families to Indian boarding schools. She hadn’t taught on the reservation very long when she was promoted to the position of Superintendent of Indian Education for the Two Dakotas. In this capacity, she travelled throughout the five Dakota reservations, visiting the more than 60 government and missionary schools within her jurisdiction, and writing detailed evaluation reports on each school she visited.

It was because of her work that Elaine just happened to be visiting the Pine Ridge Reservation when the tragic Wounded Knee Massacre took place. As a result of this tragedy, more than 200 men, women, and children from the Lakota tribe were killed, and another 51 were wounded. In addition, 25 government soldiers were also killed, most by “friendly fire,” and another 39 were wounded. Following the massacre, Elaine and her fiance,  physician Charles Eastman of the Santee Sioux tribe, cared for the survivors and wrote detailed government reports to accurately describe what happened.

In her later years, when America was experiencing a back-to-nature revival, Elaine and her husband operated Indian-themed summer camps in New Hampshire. Read more of the life story of this fascinating educator in Theodore D. Sargent’s biography The Life of Elaine Goodale Eastman, or an encapsulated version in my book,  Chalkboard Champions: Twelve Remarkable Teachers Who Educated America’s Disenfranchised Students, both available on amazon.