woman in pink sweatshirt with award standing next to man in black suit

Fall 2024 Teacher Impact Award Winners

Posted on December 12, 2024

Students took ILEARN in the Spring. The students’ results are more than just a reflection on how well they know and retained what they learned in a particular subject area. Teachers work very hard to help their students review and retain the knowledge, and when necessary interventionist educators use RtI (Response to Intervention) tools.

The Fall 2024 P-H-M Teacher Impact Awards are given to educators who had the most significant individual student growth with Spring 2024 ILEARN (grades 3-8 and high school Biology), AP Testing at Penn, and highest RtI growth.

With the help of the building principals, P-H-M Superintendent Dr. Jerry Thacker surprised the teachers with the Impact Awards. He was accompanied by other members of P-H-M Administration Dr. Heather Short, Asst. Superintendent; Director of Professional Development Dr. Lavon Dean-Null; and Ryan Towner, Director of Literacy. P-H-M Education Foundation Executive Director Jennifer Turnblom was also on hand; PHMEF covered the cost for the beautiful awards which teachers can proudly display in their classrooms.

Four awards were given out on Thursday, December 12:

woman in brown jacket receiving award from man in black suit with red tie
Grace Blanchard, 6th grade, ELA/Reading, Discovery Middle School – Highest ELA/Reading growth in 6th grade when measured from mean fall ILEARN to ILEARN Checkpoints Achievement. Click here for the full photo gallery on Discovery’s website.

 

woman in pink sweatshirt with young students
Hollie Truckowski, Reading Specialist, Elsie Rogers Elementary School – Highest growth for all students in reading specialist interventions programming. Mrs. Truckowski’s students made well above average growth in two important measures of early literacy, oral reading fluency and NWF, a standardized measure of decoding ability. Mrs. Truckowski works with students who are academically at-risk in reading, and her work puts these students on an important pathway for growth. Click here for the full photo gallery on Elsie Rogers’ website.

 

men talking in a classroom
L.A. (Kriss) High, 8th grade Math, Schmucker Middle School – Highest growth for 8th grade math, as measured from Spring ILEARN to Fall ILEARN Checkpoints. Click here for the full photo gallery on Schmucker’s website.

 

woman in plaid shirt receives award from man in black suit
Dawn Boulac, AP Statistics, Penn High School – Increased enrollment and qualifying scores on the AP Statistics Exam in May 2024 and an impressive 103 students met that benchmark! In addition, Penn AP Statistics students outperformed their peers at that state and global level in both mean scores and percentage passing. Click here for the full photo gallery on Penn’s website.

Two awards were given out on Friday, December 13:

smiling teacher wearing Christmas decorations teaching young students
Ali Renz, Interventionist, Elm Road Elementary School – Mrs. Renz works with students. She had the highest growth of all interventionists for young students in RtI programming. Mrs. Renz students made well above average growth in two important measures of early literacy, oral reading fluency and MAZE, a standardized measure of reading comprehension. Click here for the full photo gallery on Elm Road’s website.

 

People & students clapping for teacher wearing Christmas decorations
Brianne Blanda, 7th grade, Grissom Middle School – Ms. Blanda had the highest ELA growth in 7th grade, as measured from spring ILEARN to fall ILEARN checkpoints. Click here for the full photo gallery on Grissom’s website.

 

One award was given out Wednesday, Dec. 18:

Teacher dressed in festive outfit surprised with award
Sarah Budd, Resource Teacher, Meadow’s Edge – Mrs. Budd works with students across elementary grade levels. Her students show consistent strong growth across a variety of measures in early literacy. When viewed across her caseload of students, Mrs. Budd’s students experience the highest growth when compared across elementary schools, and were well above average for similar populations across the state.  

While all P-H-M teachers make an impact with their students, dedicated to helping them achieve personal academic success, the Impact Award shines the spotlight on educators who have helped their students achieve individual academic growth on their formative assessments over time. The first-ever Impact Awards were handed out in September 2023 and recognized the teachers with the most significant overall student growth during the 2022-2023 school year.

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Last Modified January 14, 2025