eSchool Media Announces Winners of the 2022 eSchool News K-12 Hero Awards
Recognizing the nation’s finest examples of K-12 success throughout the pandemic-era faculty yr, eSchool News 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 News K-12 Hero Awards, sponsored by JAR Systems and SAP Concur, and devoted to recognizing the revolutionary contributions of K-12 training professionals.
eSchool News K-12 Hero Awards Program Winners:
- Dr. Ann Hughes, Director of Student Intervention for Sanger ISD in Texas
Nominated by Ripple Effects
- Kim Leblanc, Chief Technology Officer for Calcasieu Parish School Board in Louisiana
Nominated by Bluum
- Daniel Olivas, Network Analyst at Austin Independent School District in Texas.
Nominated by Identity Automation
Winners have been chosen for his or her dedication to training throughout and in 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 training specialists, together with Laura Ascione, eSchool News editorial director, Kevin Hogan, eSchool News editor-at-large, and Eileen Belastock, CETL, Belastock Consulting.
“eSchool Media would like to thank JAR Systems and SAP Concur for sponsoring the K-12 Hero Awards Program. The program is in its second year and has been tremendously successful. We’re grateful to everyone who submitted nominations and took the time to recognize educators’ commitment to students and their learning,” expressed Nancy David, eSchool Media govt vice chairman.
Here’s a short have a look at every winner:
Dr. Ann Hughes, Director of Student Intervention, Sanger ISD, nominated by Ripple Effects
Ann’s college students battle with myriad challenges, together with points reminiscent of melancholy, hyperactivity issues, and anger. Troubled college students steadily come to Linda Tutt from different districts in the state as a final resort. In quick, Ann’s program is the final hope to get these youngsters on the proper observe.
Ann has restricted sources, each from a funding and personnel perspective. However, 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 packages like Ripple Effects for Teens, which has modules that handle a variety of points together with psychological well being, private trauma, and tutorial challenges. Ann has designated particular person rooms all through campus devoted to giving college students house to regroup. There’s a Movement 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 give counseling help not obtainable at college. These collaborations have resulted in college students honing their agriculture abilities at neighborhood gardens and studying easy methods to run a enterprise by way of a nonprofit grocery retailer.
Kim Leblanc, Chief Technology Officer, Calcasieu Parish School Board, nominated by Bluum
Conventional knowledge would say that economically-disadvantaged colleges throughout the nation would wish to assume twice earlier than making a significant funding in know-how. However, not all districts in that predicament have a know-how director like Kim Leblanc. Calcasieu Parish School Board serves 29,500 college students throughout 60 colleges. It is a one hundred pc CEP district, which implies that each pupil is eligible without cost lunch based mostly on the financial poverty information submitted to the federal authorities.
Calcasieu Parish School Board Chief Technology Officer Kim Leblanc has developed a system for offering the kind of know-how in lecture rooms that one would solely count on at prosperous colleges. Under Kim’s management, Calcasieu Parish carried out an intensive wants evaluation earlier than buying greater than $4.1 million in know-how and know-how skilled improvement with federal funds below Title I and Title IV to implement the know-how inside the present curriculum. The funding included 400 3D printers and the skilled improvement essential to advance STEAM training, most of which got here for gratis to the district. It is also growing a STEM bus with enjoyable technological devices to boost pupil studying.
Calcasieu Parish’s Training Tech Center, led by Kim, was already instrumental in introducing new know-how to its lecture rooms, together with robotics and a computing machine for every pupil and instructor. Armed with a philosophy to “make it happen in the classroom,” Calcasieu Parish and Kim are dedicated to making ready college students for STEAM careers, illustrated by its investments in pupil design competitions, summer time tech camps and the STEM bus. The college students are already using the 3D printers in lecture rooms to resolve real-world challenges and develop 3D designing abilities inside tasks.
Daniel Olivas, Network Analyst, Austin Independent School District, nominated by Identity Automation
The pandemic has accelerated the transition to distant and hybrid studying, and it made faculty districts the primary goal for cyberattacks. As the fifth largest faculty district in Texas, Austin Independent School District was no exception. Guided by the motto “AISD Anywhere,” the district used the pandemic as a possibility to offer over 100,000 college students, lecturers, employees, mother and father, and different customers with safe entry to classroom instruments from any Wi-Fi community.
As Network 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. Unlike conventional, perimeter-focused approaches to safety, Austin ISD’s zero-trust method assumes all community site visitors is untrusted till an identification 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 Identity and Access Management (IAM) platform, RapidIdentity, to grant people entry to wanted functions, whereas connecting information from these functions again to the right digital identification. Acting as the new perimeter of Austin ISD’s digital atmosphere, SpeedyIdentity has helped Austin ISD bolster safety and develop into a pacesetter in K-12 authentication and nil belief.
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“The K-12 Hero Awards Program highlights some of the amazing and innovative examples of how educators at all levels have worked tirelessly to ensure students were able to continue learning during, and in the wake of, the COVID-19 pandemic. Learning looks a bit different now, as schools emerge from the thick of the pandemic and address learning gaps, equity challenges, and increased opportunities for technology use. It is inspiring to see, from the many nominations eSN received, the dedication our nation’s educators have to our students and their learning,” commented Ascione.
In the coming weeks, Hero Awards nominations shall be highlighted on eSchoolNews.com. Winners and finalists shall be featured on the web site all through Fall 2022, and on the eSchool News podcast Innovations in Education, hosted by Hogan.
The winners and all program finalists can even be printed in a customized K-12 Hero Awards book at the program’s conclusion, which shall be obtainable for obtain.
About eSchool News
eSchool News is an internet platform that delivers day by day information and knowledge to K-12 training directors, educators, and know-how professionals. For over twenty years, eSchool News has been devoted to the development and smart use of know-how to enhance instructing and studying. Explore extra at eSchoolNews.com.
About eSchool Media
eSchool Media is a digital advertising and marketing and customized content material service platform. Through eSchool News and eCampus News, eSchool Media gives day by day authentic information, goal evaluation, sources, and knowledge to decision-making training professionals in K-12 and better training. eSchool Media serves the promoting and advertising and marketing wants of corporations and organizations that wish to affect and do enterprise with its loyal {and professional} viewers of training decision-makers.
Contact
Janice Budai
Marketing Director, eSchool Media, Inc.
jbudai@eschoolmedia.com
eSchool Media employees cowl training know-how in all its features–from laws and litigation, to finest practices, to classes realized and new merchandise. First printed in March of 1998 as a month-to-month print and digital newspaper, eSchool Media gives the information and knowledge needed to assist Okay-20 decision-makers efficiently use know-how and innovation to remodel colleges and schools and obtain their instructional targets.
