Tag Archives: Math Teachers

AR elementary teacher Jeanie Wilcoxon named her state’s 2025 Teacher of the Year

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Elementary school educator Jeanie Wilcoxon of Little Rock, Arkansas, was named her state’s 2025 Teacher of the Year. Photo credit: Jeanie Wilcoxon

I always enjoy sharing the story of an outstanding educator who has earned accolades for her work in the classroom. Today I share the story of Jeanie Wilcoxon, an elementary school teacher from Arkansas. She has been named her state’s 2025 Teacher of the Year.

Jeanie teaches mathematics to fourth graders at Chenal Elementary School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Over the course of her 25 years as a professional educator, she has developed a proven method for helping her students succeed. In fact, her students consistently score in the top 3% of all math students in her state. And her students consistently maintain high math scores on the Northwest Evaluation Association, with 80% of her students meeting their goals for growth in math.

In addition to her work at Chenal Elementary, the honored educator has also served at the high school level as an Assistant Volleyball Coach from 2016 to 2022. From 2010 to 2011, she was a fifth-grade language arts teacher in the Dumas School District, and prior to that, she taught multiple grades in Iberville Parish Schools in Plaquemine, Louisiana.

Jeanie’s selection as Arkansas’s 2025 Teacher of the Year is not the only recognition she has received. In 2007 she was named Iberville Parish Teacher of the Year. She was also named the Pulaski County Special School District Teacher of the Year for 2023-2024 and the Iberville Parish Teacher of the Year the same year. She is a member of the Order of Omega leadership honor society.

Jeanie earned her Bachelor’s degree in Elementary and Secondary Physical Education from the University of Arkansas at Monticello. She earned her teaching certificate in Elementary Education from Louisiana State University. In addition, she has experience working as a tutor and a mentor teacher.

Congratulations, Jeanie Wilcoxon!

TX educator Nancy Chavira garners 2024-2025 Milken Educator Award

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Middle school Nancy Chavira of Texas has garnered a prestigious 2024-2025 Milken Educator Award. Photo credit: KRWG Public Media

Hearty congratulations go to Nancy Chavira, a middle school teacher from Fabens, Texas. She has garnered a prestigious 2024-2025 Milken Educator Award from the Milken Family Foundation, one of only 34 educators nationwide to win the award this year.

The Milken Educator Awards have been described by Teacher Magazine as the “Oscars of Teaching.” In addition to the $25,000 cash prize and public recognition, the award includes membership in the National Milken Educator Network, a group of more than 3,000 exemplary teachers, principals, and specialists from all over the country whose work strengthens best practices in education. To learn more, click on Milken Educator Awards.

Nancy teaches mathematics and science to fifth graders at Johanna O’Donnell Intermediate School in Fabens, Texas. The students in her classroom learn in a 50/50 model classroom where curriculum is taught in both Spanish and English.

In addition to her classroom responsibilities, Nancy serves as the school’s yearbook advisor and as a member of the Science Fair Committee member. She organizes the students in her class to participate in the annual O’Donnell Christmas Project, a project that helps to build gift bags of essential to distribute to residents in Ciudad Juárez. And, as if all that were not enough, Nancy also contributes to her community by training families on how to promote reading instruction at home.

“Nancy Chavira sets a high bar when it comes to being a role model for young students and fellow colleagues,” delcares Dr. Foley, a fellow Milken Educator. “Her unwavering dedication has made a positive impact on her classroom, school and the community,” she continued.

Nancy earned her Bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies with a concentration as a EC-6 Bilingual Generalist from the University of Texas, El Paso, in 2015.

 

Remembering educator and Civil Rights leader Bob Moses

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Math educator and legendary Civil Rights Movement leader Bob Moses organized Black voter registration efforts and the Freedom Schools made famous during the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer. Photo credit: The Pine Belt News

During Black History Month, we’d like to recognize Bob Moses. He was a legendary Civil Rights Movement leader who organized black voter registration efforts and Freedom Schools made famous during the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer. He was also an innovative math educator.

Bob Moses was born in New York City on Jan. 23, 1935, to a family of modest means. He was raised in the Projects in Harlem. Despite his family’s limited financial resources, Bob earned a scholarship to attend Stuyvesant High School, an elite public high school for gifted boys. Before his graduation in 1952, Bob was elected senior class president and served as the captain of the school’s baseball team.

Upon graduation, Bob earned another scholarship, this time to attend Hamilton College, a prestigious private liberal arts college in Clinton, New York. There he majored in philosophy and participated in both the basketball and baseball programs. After completing the requirements for his Bachelor’s degree in 1956, Bob traveled abroad extensively, working in a series of Quaker summer camps in Europe and Japan building housing for the poor, harvesting crops for a missionary hospital, and improving facilities for mentally disturbed children. The following year he earned his Master’s degree in Analytic Philosophy from Harvard University.

Bob was teaching at the prestigious Horace Mann High School in the Bronx when he became aware of the student sit-ins that were taking place in Greensboro, North Carolina. He decided to join them, and that decision launched the math educator’s path towards becoming a legendary figure during the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement. Bob is best known for organizing the Black voter registration efforts and the Freedom Schools made famous during the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer. This heroic teacher’s revolutionary work, which was not without risk to life and limb, transformed the political power structure of entire communities.

Forty years later, Bob advocated for yet another transformational change: the Algebra Project. When he created this program, Bob asserted that a deficiency in math literacy in poor neighborhoods puts impoverished children at an economic disadvantage. The deficiency makes students unable to compete successfully for jobs in the 21st century. This disenfranchisement, he declared, is as debilitating as lack of personal liberties was prior to the Civil Rights Movement. Bob’s solution was to organize people, community by community, school by school, to overcome the achievement gap. He believed this would give impoverished children the tools they need to claim their share of economic enfranchisement. Bob described his work in this area in his  book, Radical Equations: Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project written with fellow Civil Rights worker Charles E. Cobb, Jr.

Sadly, Bob Moses passed away in Florida on Sun., July 25, 2021, at the age of 86.

A chapter about this remarkable teacher is also included in my second book, entitled Chalkboard Heroes: Twelve Courageous Teachers and Their Deeds of Valor.  This book is also available on amazon; click on this link to view: Chalkboard Heroes.

Mathematics teacher Kristy Bishop of Washington state earns honors

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High school mathematics and CTE teacher Kristy Bishop has been named Washington state’s 2025 North Central Regional Teacher of the Year. Photo credit: North Central Educational Service District

How amazing are our nation’s public school educators? Very amazing, I must say. And one of these amazing teaches is Kristy Bishop, a mathematics and CTE (Consumer and Technology Education) teacher from Moses Lake in Washington. She has been named the 2025 North Central Regional Teacher of the Year.

Kristy has been teaching at Moses Lake High School for the past 25 years. There she instructs courses in Consumer Finance, AP Statistics, and Precalculus. She also performs the role of Community Outreach Coordinator for the Quincy School District. In addition, she has participated in several site-level committees, assisted in a large-scale book adoption, and coordinated a major technology adoption. And, as if all that were not enough, she has served as her Math Department Chair, as a mentor for new teachers, and as a union representative.

In her classroom, Kristy is known for fostering a respectful, professional, and compassionate learning environment. And she has a reputation for supporting developmental growth, for encouraging students to be their best selves, and with connecting with her students. In fact, she works diligently to build strong relationships that continue long after graduation.

Her curriculum is designed to have significant meaning for those enrolled in her courses. “Making [real-world] connections for students is not something that happens in a given lesson or activity,” Kristy declares. “It is a daily commitment to learning about and supporting my students as they work to accomplish their own goals.” The effort does not go unnoticed by her students. To show her how much they appreciate her, she has been honored as one of the school’s Staff of the Year in both 2023 and 2024.

This outstanding classroom teacher is a native of Moses Lake. Both her parents are retired educators.

Alma Whitacre: Teacher, mountain climber, and national parks guide

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Alma Wagen Whitacre

Alma Wagen Witacre: Teacher, mountain climber, and national parks guide.

Many talented educators pursue careers in areas other than education. This is certainly the case for Alma Wagen Whitacre, a high school math teacher who also enjoyed an illustrious career as a mountain climber and national parks guide.

Alma was born in 1878 on her grandparents’ farm in Mankato, Minnesota. As a young child, she discovered an irrestible desire to climb, and because there were no mountains near her home, she began to climb local windmills. This earned her the nickname of “the windmill climber.”

After high school, Alma attended the University of Minnesota, graduating in 1903. She then moved to Tacoma, Washington, where she accepted a position as a math teacher at Stadium High School. Just about every minute she was not in the classroom, she climbed in the nearby North Cascades and Olympic Mountains.

In 1913, Alma became an official member of the Mountaineers, a nonprofit outdoor recreation, education, and conservation group founded in 1906. The next year, she traveled to Glacier National Park where she discovered a passion for national parks. The following year she climbed Mount Rainier for the first time. In 1916, the intrepid math teacher spent the summer hiking in Yellowstone National Park, and in 1917, she climbed Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens, and Mount Hood with the Mountaineers. It was during one of these climbs that Alma nearly lost her life. In the June, 1922, Sunset Magazine, it was recounted that, “When well up to the summit of Mount Hood, a small boulder, loosened by the melting snow, came bounding down the steep declivity, (and) struck Miss Wagen upon the back just above one hip. The pain and shock were terrific, but the girl, clutching the rope desperately, saved herself a fall that would have meant death.”

When the United States became involved in World War I, many mountain guides volunteered for military or civil service. To partially fill this personnel shortage, Alma joined the National Park Service as a guide in 1918. She was the first woman to become a guide in Mount Rainier National Park. She spent her work hours as a guide leading tourists on hikes to nearby glaciers. Joseph Hazard, Rainier’s chief climbing guide at the time, once described the teacher as “one of the best guides in the employ of the company.” She also worked in Yosemite National Park briefly in 1922 before returning to Rainier.

Alma had come to the Northwest wearing a jaunty Tyrolean hat decorated with a pheasant feather. Her hat and feather became her trademark as a guide. The rest of her outdoor clothing was warm and practical for use in uncertain weather conditions. The weather did not dampen her enthusiasm for climbing, however. In an interview appearing in the April 18,1923, Tacoma News Tribune, Alma declared, “I wanted to get up among the clouds and to feel myself as free as the birds and the air, and to be able to shout my freedom as loudly as I liked without having someone point to me sadly and say ‘It is not pretty for little girls to climb windmills.’”

Alma retired from her career as a mountain guide following her marriage to Horace J. Whitacre in Tacoma. After he passed away in 1950, she moved to Claremont, California, where she lived until her death on December 7, 1967.