Recognizing the nation’s greatest examples of Ok-12 success throughout the pandemic-era faculty yr, eSchool Information acknowledges three winners for his or her distinctive efforts to assist all college students proceed studying, whereas guaranteeing college students felt protected, empowered, and engaged.
Gaithersburg, MD (Monday, October 3, 2022) — eSchool Media is thrilled to announce the winners of the 2022 eSchool Information Ok-12 Hero Awards, sponsored by JAR Methods and SAP Concur, and devoted to recognizing the modern contributions of Ok-12 schooling professionals.
eSchool Information Ok-12 Hero Awards Program Winners:
- Dr. Ann Hughes, Director of Pupil Intervention for Sanger ISD in Texas
Nominated by Ripple Results
- Kim Leblanc, Chief Expertise Officer for Calcasieu Parish Faculty Board in Louisiana
Nominated by Bluum
- Daniel Olivas, Community Analyst at Austin Impartial Faculty District in Texas.
Nominated by Identification Automation
Winners have been chosen for his or her dedication to schooling throughout and within the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, their creativity and innovation in serving to all college students proceed studying whereas guaranteeing college students felt protected, empowered, and engaged.
Nominations have been judged by a panel of schooling consultants, together with Laura Ascione, eSchool Information editorial director, Kevin Hogan, eSchool Information editor-at-large, and Eileen Belastock, CETL, Belastock Consulting.
“eSchool Media wish to thank JAR Methods and SAP Concur for sponsoring the Ok-12 Hero Awards Program. This system is in its second yr and has been tremendously profitable. We’re grateful to everybody who submitted nominations and took the time to acknowledge educators’ dedication to college students and their studying,” expressed Nancy David, eSchool Media government vice chairman.
Right here’s a quick have a look at every winner:
Dr. Ann Hughes, Director of Pupil Intervention, Sanger ISD, nominated by Ripple Results
Ann’s college students wrestle with myriad challenges, together with points akin to melancholy, hyperactivity problems, and anger. Troubled college students ceaselessly come to Linda Tutt from different districts within the state as a final resort. Briefly, Ann’s program is the final hope to get these children heading in the right direction.
Ann has restricted sources, each from a funding and personnel perspective. Nonetheless, she meets these challenges holistically and creatively. She stops college students every day to have interaction in significant conversations about their lives. She faucets into applications like Ripple Results for Teenagers, which has modules that deal with a variety of points together with psychological well being, private trauma, and educational challenges. Ann has designated particular person rooms all through campus devoted to giving college students area to regroup. There’s a Motion Room to work off extra power and a Chill Out Room for leisure. Music, yoga, and dance are different key parts she incorporates to succeed in her college students.
To fill the gaps in funding and personnel sources, Ann has spearheaded neighborhood partnerships with native church buildings and charities, which offer counseling help not accessible at college. These collaborations have resulted in college students honing their agriculture abilities at neighborhood gardens and studying how one can run a enterprise through a nonprofit grocery retailer.
Kim Leblanc, Chief Expertise Officer, Calcasieu Parish Faculty Board, nominated by Bluum
Standard knowledge would say that economically-disadvantaged faculties throughout the nation would want to assume twice earlier than making a significant funding in expertise. Nonetheless, not all districts in that predicament have a expertise director like Kim Leblanc. Calcasieu Parish Faculty Board serves 29,500 college students throughout 60 faculties. It’s a one hundred pc CEP district, which signifies that each pupil is eligible at no cost lunch based mostly on the financial poverty knowledge submitted to the federal authorities.
Calcasieu Parish Faculty Board Chief Expertise Officer Kim Leblanc has developed a system for offering the kind of expertise in school rooms that one would solely count on at prosperous faculties. Underneath Kim’s management, Calcasieu Parish carried out a radical wants evaluation earlier than buying greater than $4.1 million in expertise and expertise skilled growth with federal funds below Title I and Title IV to implement the expertise throughout the current curriculum. The funding included 400 3D printers and the skilled growth essential to advance STEAM schooling, most of which got here for gratis to the district. It is also creating a STEM bus with enjoyable technological devices to reinforce pupil studying.
Calcasieu Parish’s Coaching Tech Heart, led by Kim, was already instrumental in introducing new expertise to its school rooms, together with robotics and a computing system for every pupil and instructor. Armed with a philosophy to “make it occur within the classroom,” Calcasieu Parish and Kim are dedicated to getting ready college students for STEAM careers, illustrated by its investments in pupil design competitions, summer season tech camps and the STEM bus. The scholars are already using the 3D printers in school rooms to unravel real-world challenges and develop 3D designing abilities inside initiatives.
Daniel Olivas, Community Analyst, Austin Impartial Faculty District, nominated by Identification Automation
The pandemic has accelerated the transition to distant and hybrid studying, and it made faculty districts the primary goal for cyberattacks. Because the fifth largest faculty district in Texas, Austin Impartial Faculty District was no exception. Guided by the motto “AISD Wherever,” the district used the pandemic as a chance to offer over 100,000 college students, lecturers, employees, dad and mom, and different customers with safe entry to classroom instruments from any Wi-Fi community.
As Community Analyst at Austin ISD, Daniel Olivas led the implementation of an identity-centric zero belief safety technique that ensured this entry was not solely user-friendly, however safe. Not like conventional, perimeter-focused approaches to safety, Austin ISD’s zero-trust method assumes all community visitors is untrusted till an id has been verified–a essential step to securing a digital ecosystem that may be accessed from anyplace.
To tie Austin ISD’s digital ecosystem collectively and orient it round digital identities, Olivas leveraged the district’s long-time Identification and Entry Administration (IAM) platform, RapidIdentity, to grant people entry to wanted functions, whereas connecting knowledge from these functions again to the proper digital id. Performing as the brand new perimeter of Austin ISD’s digital setting, RapidIdentity has helped Austin ISD bolster safety and turn into a pacesetter in Ok-12 authentication and 0 belief.
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“The Ok-12 Hero Awards Program highlights a few of the wonderful and modern examples of how educators in any respect ranges have labored tirelessly to make sure college students have been capable of proceed studying throughout, and within the wake of, the COVID-19 pandemic. Studying appears a bit completely different now, as faculties emerge from the thick of the pandemic and deal with studying gaps, fairness challenges, and elevated alternatives for expertise use. It’s inspiring to see, from the various nominations eSN obtained, the dedication our nation’s educators should our college students and their studying,” commented Ascione.
Within the coming weeks, Hero Awards nominations might be highlighted on eSchoolNews.com. Winners and finalists might be featured on the location all through Fall 2022, and on the eSchool Information podcast Improvements in Schooling, hosted by Hogan.
The winners and all program finalists may even be printed in a customized Ok-12 Hero Awards e book on the program’s conclusion, which might be accessible for obtain.
About eSchool Information
eSchool Information is a web based platform that delivers day by day information and data to Ok-12 schooling directors, educators, and expertise professionals. For over twenty years, eSchool Information has been devoted to the development and sensible use of expertise to enhance educating and studying. Discover extra at eSchoolNews.com.
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eSchool Media employees cowl schooling expertise in all its facets–from laws and litigation, to greatest practices, to classes discovered and new merchandise. First printed in March of 1998 as a month-to-month print and digital newspaper, eSchool Media supplies the information and data needed to assist Ok-20 decision-makers efficiently use expertise and innovation to rework faculties and faculties and obtain their instructional objectives.
