Tag Archives: English Teachers

Kathryn Locke-Jones named Maryland’s 2024-2025 State Teacher of the Year

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English/Language Arts teacher Kathryn Locke-Jones has been named the Maryland State teacher of the Year for 2024-2025. (Photo credit: Kathryn Locke-Jones)

There are many dedicated educators working in our nation’s schools who are deserving of accolades. One of them is Kathryn Locke-Jones, a junior high school teacher who has been named Maryland’s State Teacher of the Year for 2024-2025.

Kathryn, who is often called Kat, teaches English/Language Arts to seventh graders at Hampstead Hill Academy in Baltimore, Maryland. In the years she has taught there, she initiated the school’s National History Day program and launched a writing center to support multi-lingual learners. And her efforts have garnered remarkable results. Her students have earned the highest seventh grade score on state assessments for five years in a row. Kat has taught in Baltimore City Public Schools for 12 years.

Kat says she is passionate about creating safe spaces for her students and helping them find their voice so they can tell their stories. She believes that a teacher’s greatest honor is to hand students a pen.

In addition to her work in the classroom, Kat co-founded SL24, a nonprofit foundation to educate, assist, and support students with their mental health. Her work has created a positive impact on more than 90,000 educators. Since 2019, SL24 has raised more than $4 million for mental health education and created Sean’s House, a  free 24/7 mental health safe haven for young adults between the ages 14 and 24. Since its opening in 2020, more than 32,000 people have been served by Sean’s House.

Garnering the State Teacher of the Year award is not the only honor Kat has earned. In 2019 she was named a 2019 Kennedy Leadership Award Winner for Excellence in Teaching, in recognition of having a profound impact with students and communities.

Kat earned her Bachelor’s degree in English Education from the University of Delaware in 2013. She earned her Master’s degree in education from Johns Hopkins University in 2015.

MN teacher Tracy Byrd named his state’s 2024-2025 Teacher of the Year

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High school  Language Arts teacher Tracy Byrd of Minneapolis, Minnesota, has been named his state’s 2024-2025 Teacher of the Year. (Photo credit: Elevate Teaching)

I am always excited to share the story of an outstanding educator who has been honored for their work in the classroom. Today I share the story of Tracy Byrd, a high school teacher from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has been named his state’s 2024-2025 Teacher of the Year, reports the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Tracy teaches courses in Language Arts to ninth graders at Washburn High School, his own high school alma mater. There he has also served as the Head Coach for the school’s Track and Field team since 2022, and he has also coached football as the Defensive Coordinator. He has been teaching at the school since 2017. Previously, Tracy worked at Wayzata School District in Minneapolis, where he inaugurated his career in public schools as a hall supervisor. That’s when he discovered that he had a natural gift for commenting with young people.

The honored educator admits that school was not his favorite place as a young student. Education was not his original career choice. Instead, he worked for investment banks. Today, though, Tracy sees the classroom as his true calling. He declares his goal is to provide fair access to education for all students, something Byrd found lacking in his own experience, is his teaching. “True access to education can change the trajectory of a student,” Tracy asserts. “It could be the spark that ignites the flame for a young student into a field they didn’t know existed,” he continues. “To me, that is the purpose of education: Not to give them something they already know, but to show them something new and authentic so they can learn and grow,” he concludes.

Tracy earned his Bachelors degree in English Language and Literature from Metro State University in 2014. He completed the requirements for his teaching credential there in 2017.

 

VT English teacher Leanne Harple elected to her state’s House of Reps

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High school English teacher Leanne Harple has been elected to serve in her state’s House of Representatives. Photo credit: Vermont House of Representatives

Many fine public school teachers also represent their communities in political bodies. this is true of Leanne Harple, a high school English teacher from Vermont who is currently serving in the Vermont House of Representatives.

Leanne was born and raised on a Christmas tree farm in Glover in rural Northeast Kingdom. Once she graduated from Lake Region High School, she attended Vermont’s Johnson State College, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing and Theater Arts and her Master’s degree in Education. She currently lives in Glover with her husband and two young children.

For more than a decade Leanne has taught English courses at Hazen Union School in Hardwick, Vermont. She has taught there for 11 years. She formerly served roles as the President and the Vice-President of the Orleans Southwest Education Association. In the past, she has served her community as a Select Board Member and she currently serves as a Justice of the Peace.

In Nov. 2024, Leanne was elected on the Democratic ticket to a seat in her state’s House of Representatives representing Orleans-District 4, which includes Albany, Craftsbury, Glover, and Greensboro.. She was sworn in on Jan., 2025, and her current term expires on Jan. 6, 2027. In her capacity as a state representative, Leanne has declared she intends to focus on such issues as affordable housing, climate action, education, health care, and mental health support, emphasizing the particular challenges faced by rural communities in Vermont. While serving, Leanne says she hopes to “address the many systemic problems that prevent kids from being ready to learn when they come to school, including childhood poverty, hunger, and anxiety.”

To read more about Leanne Harple, click on this link to an interview with her published online by the vtdigger.

Adelaide Cumming, the iconic face of Betty Crocker, was also an English teacher

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The image of Betty Crocker, an American icon in the 1950’s, was actually Adelaide Cumming, an English teacher who taught English as a Second Language learners. Photo credit: General Mills

Betty Crocker was an icon of America womanhood in the 1950’s, but did you know the marketing image of the famous housewife was actually that of Adelaide Hawley Cumming, an English teacher?

This remarkable educator portrayed the fictional Betty Crocker on a weekly half-hour television show called The Betty Crocker Show. She also starred in walk-on commercials on the Burns & Allen Show, where comedian George Burns would say to his wife, “I don’t know how to bake a cake, Gracie, but here is Betty Crocker to show us how.”

Adelaide was born in 1905 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. A vaudeville performer and broadcast pioneer, Adelaide majored in piano and voice at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, New York. Following her graduation from college, she taught music for two and a half years at the Alabama College School of Music in Montevallo, Alabama.

From 1937 to 1950, the talented teacher was the host of the Adelaide Hawley Program, first on NBC radio and then on CBS. At the height of her career, Adelaide was a nationally recognized figure, second only to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. According to Adelaide’s daughter, Marcia Hayes, the teacher and actress was a feminist in her private life, and was not especially fond of cooking. “I am merely the manifestation of a corporate image,” she once told autograph-seeking fans. She practiced her autograph as Betty Crocker by copying the signature from the top of the cake mix box.

When General Mills replaced her with a more updated image in 1964, Adelaide went back to school, earning a doctorate in speech education from New York University in 1967. She taught English to second-language learners in Washington state until her death at age 93 in 1998, a career as an educator that spanned nearly thirty years.

To read more about the marketing of Betty Crocker, see this article entitled Betty Crocker: A Brief Biography.

Shauna Waters named Mississippi’s 2025 Teacher of the Year

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High school English teacher Shauna Waters of Collinsville, Mississippi, has been named her state’s 2025 Teacher of the Year. Photo credit: Shauna Waters

I am always excited to share the story of a public school teacher who has earned recognition for their work I the classroom. Today, I share the story of Shauna Waters, a high school teacher from Collinsville, Mississippi. She has been named her state’s 2025 Teacher of the Year.

Shauna teaches Dual enrollment English Composition 1 and Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition at West Lauderdale High School in Collinsville. She also serves as her school’s Academic Team sponsor, newspaper advisor, and National Honor Society advisor. As if all that were not enough, she has served as a reader for the AP English Literature and Composition national exam in 2010, 2011, and 2014 – 2023.

In her classroom, Shauna says she seeks to ensure students build flexibility by developing 21st century skills of communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking.

In addition to her work at West Lauderdale, Shauna has taught in the Intensive English Program at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana and in the Aichi University’s Comparative Cultures Department in Toyohashi, Japan. 

Her selection as Mississippi’s 2025 Teacher of the Year is not the only recognition Shauna has earned. She has been honored as a Mississippi STAR teacher seven times; a Yale Educator; and a US Presidential Scholar Distinguished Teacher. She is also a member of Delta Kappa Gamma Society International (DKG), a professional honor society of women educators.

Shauna earned her Bachelor’s degree in English from Mississippi State University with a minor in Spanish. She earned her Master’s degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages and Applied Linguistics from Indiana University. Currently, she is pursuing an educational specialist degree in educational leadership at William Carey University. She has been a teacher since 2001.