Tag Archives: Elementary Teachers

SD teacher Naomi Last Horse Black Elk serves Native American students

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Teacher Naomi Last Horse Black Elk speaks with one of her students at a unique school that integrates Native American culture, history, and language into lesson plans. Photo Credit: South Dakota News Watch

Many excellent Native American educators serve students of their own culture very well. One of these is Naomi Last Horse Black Elk, a teacher of Oglala Lakota descent. Naomi serves as an educator of Native American culture at the Oceti Sakowin Community Academy located in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Naomi was born and raised in Kyle, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Reservation. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in K-12th Lakota Studies Education from Oglala Lakota College. Raised by her grandparents in a traditional setting, the Lakota language was always spoken in the home. As a young girl, many things were taught to the children in her community, including beading, sewing, preparing traditional foods, foraging, harvesting, and butchering meat, She has been teaching Lakota language for over 11 years.

In her classroom, Naomi uses evidence-based, culturally-focused teaching methods, curriculum, and environments that are intended to improve the academic performance of her young students.

Naomi takes her position as a role model very seriously. “I became an educator to inspire, promote and contribute to the seventh generation, through language, culture and values,” she explains. “I promote indigenous education through speaking always, listening always, and encouraging always to our young ones to learn our language whenever and wherever, the goal is to never stop,” she continues.

In Naomi’s classroom, students encounter an environment that is decorated with Lakota numbers, letters, and translations. She creates lessons from books by Native authors and Native folk tales. She encourages a spirit of kinship among her students, who often refer to one another as “cousins.”

To learn more about Naomi and the unique school where she teaches, click on this link to an article about her published by South Dakota News Watch.

Washington educator Gina Behens builds literacy through books

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Elementary school educator Gina Behrens from the state of Washington helps. her students build literacy through books. Photo credit: Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction

There are many excellent teachers who work in our nation’s classrooms, and one of them is Gina Behens, an elementary school educator from the state of Washington. She helps her students build literacy through books.

Gina is an academic interventionist and instructional coach at Seth Woodard Elementary School in the West Valley School District in Spokane. In a career that spans 29 years, she’s worked at Woodard Elementary since 2013. Over the years, Gina has earned universal  respect from her students, families, and co-workers. She is described by her peers as an energetic, creative, hard-working professional who delivers high-quality instruction to struggling students.

This dedicated educator is a passionate literacy leader who works very hard to build a culture of reading, both inside and outside of the classroom. She has secured numerous grants in her efforts to create greater access to books for students, families, and classroom libraries. Many students in the school regularly visit her classroom’s lending library, which is available to everyone. Often students will find a hand-delivered book left on their desk with a personal note from Gina that encourages them to try a book she selected especially for them. And she has hosted over 50 family engagement events she organized to increase knowledge, confidence, and skills in literacy.

In addition to her work in the classroom, Gina is a member of her school’s Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) leadership team, the school leadership team, and the child study team.

For her work as an educator, Gina has been named the 2023 NorthEast Washington Educational School District 101 (NEWESD) Teacher of the Year. She also earned the Above and Beyond Award in 2021, an accolade that recognized her for being an outstanding educator.

 

AZ elem teacher Derek Brown shares strategies for teaching kindness

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Educators who are looking for ways to teach kindness win the classroom may want to take a cue from Derek Brown, an elementary teacher from Arizona. For ten years, he has been showing his fifth graders Steve Hartman’s “On the Road” stories aired by CBS Evening News. Derek says the stories, that have been called lessons in Kindness 101, teach the kids how to be “grounded and good.” To learn more about this, view the two-minute You Tube video below:

MO teacher Vanessa Thomson earns Milken Educator Award

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Elementary school teacher Vanessa Thomson of Gladstone, Missouri, has garnered a prestigious Milken Educator Award. Photo credit: North Kansas City Schools

I always enjoy sharing an inspirational story about a talented educator who has earned accolades for work in the classroom. Today’s story is about elementary school teacher Vanessa Thomson of Gladstone, Missouri. She has garnered a prestigious Milken Educator Award for 2023.

Vanessa teaches second grade at Chapel Hill Elementary School in her home town of Gladstone. In a career that spans 15 years, Vanessa has spent all of them at Chapel Hill. The honored educator has accomplished amazing results with her students. Last year, her kids demonstrated significant growth in all content areas, with 70% ending the year reading at or above grade level and more than 90% mastering most math standards. Because her school’s population of English language learners (ELLs) has grown in recent years, Vanessa has focused on building a variety of language development strategies. And her hard work has yielded the desired results. In spring 2022, 89% of her ELL students demonstrated mastery on all priority standards, up from 25% at the beginning of the school year.

On her campus, Vanessa has a reputation for being a passionate advocate for her students. And her devotion doesn’t end when they leave her classroom. “I follow up with them. I have been invited to graduations and parties,” Vanessa says. “The kids my first year of teaching are graduating from college,” she continues. “If one of them wants to be a teacher or they receive some encouragement from me that takes them on a positive path, I have done my job. After all, it was my first-grade teacher that inspired me to be a teacher,” she concludes.

In addition to working with students in her classroom, Vanessa serves as a facilitator for Chapel Hill’s leadership team, she is a member of her District’s strategic plan action team, and she mentors new and beginning teachers. She also serves as a District demonstration teacher for writing, hosting teachers from across the district for lesson observations and sharing of best practices.

Vanessa earned a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, in 2008. She earned her Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction from Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas, in 2013.

The Milken Educator Awards are hailed by Teacher magazine as the “Oscars of Teaching.” For more than 35 years, the program has recognized excellence in the world of education by honoring top educators around the country with a $25,000  cash prize. The honor includes membership in the National Milken Educator Network, a group of more than 2,700 exemplary professional educators from all over the country. To learn more, click on Milken Educator Awards.

Elem teacher Melissa Kmetz named Ohio’s 2023 Teacher of the Year

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Elementary school teacher Melissa Kmetz has been named as her state’s 2023 Teacher of the Year. Photo credit: Ohio State Department of Education

I always enjoy sharing stories about exceptional teachers who have earned accolades for their work in the classroom. Today, I shine a spotlight on Melissa Kmetz, an elementary school teacher from Cortland, Ohio. She has been named her state’s 2023 Teacher of the Year.

Melissa was raised in Campbell, Ohio, where she graduated from Campbell Memorial High. At the time of her graduation, she earned a full academic scholarship to Youngstown State University, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education, summa cum laude, in 2003. She earned a Master’s degree as a Reading Specialist from Youngstown in 2007. That year, she earned the ETS Recognition of Excellence award. She has also completed courses at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Once she earned her degree, Melissa inaugurate her career as an educator in Salem, Ohio, where she taught first grade. While there, she garnered a Martha Holden Jennings Grant to Educators, which she used to fund a literacy lending library. Later she relocated to Lakeview Local Schools, where she has been teaching ever since. In all, her career as a professional educator spans 20 years.

Currently, Melissa teaches third grade at Lakeview Elementary School, where she has been since 2006. She has a reputation for being a strong advocate for culturally diverse curriculum, global education, and student activism. In fact, in 2010, the honored teacher developed a Change the World Project in her school district. Through this project, for the past 12 years, Melissa’s students have been activists, developing charitable projects to benefit those in need both in their community and abroad. Over the years, these projects have included support globally to help those experiencing hunger, offering assistance to individuals impacted by natural disasters, helping to grant the wishes of terminally ill children, creating comfort kits for children in foster care, and supporting local animal shelters.

Melissa can really see the value in these projects. “It’s just really getting them to see that their hard work can reach out into the community and also other countries, as well,” she asserts. “That there’s a reason they’re doing everything. Not just that ‘A’ on a paper, but that they can use what they know to make the world a better place,” she concludes.

Indeed, Melissa.