Four East Longmeadow educators receive 2015 Excellence in Teaching Award

Date: 2/19/2015

EAST?LONGMEADOW – Four teachers in the district have been named as recipients of the 2015 Harold Grinspoon Foundation Excellence in Teaching Awards, including three at East Longmeadow High School (ELHS) and one at Meadow Brook Elementary School.

Superintendent of Schools Gordon Smith told Reminder Publications each year three veteran teachers and one teacher within their first three years of teaching are nominated by their colleagues for the award, which a teacher can only receive once.

“The peers throughout the district make the nomination and they have to put in writing how their nomination has met the criteria of not only excellence in the classroom, but going beyond the classroom, connecting with not only students and their families but in the community and different things within their area of expertise that they’ve brought to the school system,” he added.

Mary Jo Renear, an ELHS biology teacher who has been teaching at the school for 21 years, said she was surprised to hear that she had been named a recipient of one of this year’s awards.

“I always nominate other teachers,” she added. “I felt really honored that my colleagues would have nominated me. Of course, it’s always nice to get that recognition. Hopefully they’ve recognized the amount of time that I spent preparing for my classes and developing as a teacher as well. I see my teaching career as sort of an evolution.”

Renear, who also teaches advanced placement (AP) biology, said many students who graduate and begin their college careers have told her the AP biology courses have helped their studies.

“I had an email last year from a student who was a junior at the University of New Hampshire and she was a physical therapy major and she was taking a neuroscience [course] and she was like, ‘This is probably the hardest class that I’ve taken, but I’m still learning things I learned in AP biology.’”

Some of Renear’s former students have also become doctors and pharmacists, she added.

Renear also developed a partnership nearly five years ago with Harvard University for equipment and reagents used in a biological technology unit.

“Two labs that we do within that – we transform bacteria; that means we insert a gene in them from a jellyfish for red florescent protein and so we transform them into ones that can glow red under ultraviolet light,” she added.

The unit also includes a buccal swab of cheek DNA cells to determine a student’s ancestry, Renear said.

“We copy their DNA and if they’re successful, we can send it out to get sequenced and then they can match it up with some databases and maybe see if they have some Eskimo in their past or do they have Asian descent,” she added. “It doesn’t really tell them a lot, but it allows them to use a little segment of their DNA to make a phylogenetic tree to show maybe a little bit about their ancestors.”

Stacie Humphries, a K-2 special needs teacher at Meadow Brook Elementary School who has been teaching for 22 years, said she was honored and humbled to hear the news about her award.

“It’s a roller coaster,” she added. “We have things we have to overcome and it’s great to see when kids finally get it. The sparks and the light bulbs go off and I really enjoy my job.”

Mary Jane McMahon, a family consumer science teacher at ELHS, has been teaching at the school for 18 years.

In the morning of Feb. 13, McMahon’s class were making Valentine’s Day themed “Romeo’s Egg Sandwiches” for the school’s “Café East,” which is a part of the family consumer science program. The café is open to parents and staff. Food items typically sell for $1 each.

Once a week, preschoolers “come to the big kids’ restaurant” to eat meals and are served by ELHS students, McMahon said.

Another project for students in her class involves students inviting a senior of their choosing to a meal of their own creation, she said. The project also involves students holding a conversation with their guest about food.

Several of McMahon’s student’s have pursued careers in the culinary business and teaching, she noted. Two notable former students include Peter Gray, owner and operator of Pete’s Sweets at 32 Shaker Road, and Ross Weinberg, a sous-chef at the Park Plaza Hotel in New York City at the Todd English Food Hall.

“He just was named executive chef of Todd’s restaurant at LaGuardia Airport,” she added. “He’s 25 years old.”

William Phelan, an ELHS algebra I and II teacher, is currently in his first year at the school.

Phelan said he sometimes incorporates the history of an algebra topic, depending on the lesson. As a lesson, he also sometimes puts algebra problems on the board with intentional mistakes for students to figure out as a way to show that he still make’s mistakes with the material, which gives students more confidence.

“I think [a lot about keeping Algebra interesting] is pacing,” he explained. “We’re going so quick every single day. A lot of times it’s a new topic every single day [in an 85-minute block class].”

The Hampden County Excellence in Teaching Award ceremony will take place on May 14 at 6 p.m. at the Log Cabin in Holyoke. All four teachers will be honored alongside other teachers from districts such as Springfield, Longmeadow and the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District.