LOCAL TEACHER WINS NATIONAL HONOR
Thursday, May 8th, 2008 -- 11:45 AM
A Granton teacher is back in the classroom after winning the highest recognition a K-12 math or science teacher can receive.Lorna Vazquez has been teaching mathematics at Granton for the past 14 years.
She was recently selected to receive the [url=http://www.paemst.org/controllers/home.cfc?method=view]Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics Teaching[/url] and attended a week-long recognition event in Washington D.C. last week.
"You're nominated, and then you write a lengthy application," Vazquez explains, "It consists of a lesson that you videotape, and then you write a reflection on that lesson and how you think it went."
The material was submitted last March. A few months ago, she learned she was a state finalist. "Then you wait some more and then you're finally notified that you are the one from the state," Vazquez explains.
The week in D.C. was "awesome," and full of highlights, including a State Department dinner.
"(It was) on the top floor, which is more like a museum than an office building. Very fancy, very top-notch," Vazquez recalls.
Vazquez also met with our senators and congressman and had her picture taken with Vice President Dick Cheney, though the security was tight.
"That was an interesting day because of the security with respect to the White House and everything that surrounds it. They hustled us all in and we posed for quite a while before Vice President Cheney came in," Vazquez says.
President Bush was meeting with the New York Giants that day.
Aside from the prestige and trip to D.C., she also received a certificate signed by the President, gifts and a $10,000 award from the National Science Foundation.
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