INDIANAPOLIS — Ann Mennonno wants her students to be the change agents the world is waiting for and needs. That transformation starts with her, she says, because teachers change the world — every day — one child at a time. The 13-year veteran’s philosophy and success in the classroom is key to her selection as the Indianapolis Public Schools’ 2013-2014 Teacher of the Year.
IPS School Board President Diane Arnold surprised Mennonno with the good news in her multi-age, Grades 1-2 classroom at the Center for Inquiry at School 27 on June 7. Arnold presented Mennonno, who is in her second year teaching at the district’s newest Grades K-5 Center For Inquiry (CFI) elementary, with a bouquet of flowers.
This is the second time in her career for Mennonno to be selected the IPS Teacher of the Year. She received the honor in 2004 just three years after she started teaching at CFI School 2.
Every year, IPS teachers are chosen by their building-level peers to represent their school as Teacher of the Year. These educators create a portfolio following the guidelines outlined in the Indiana Teacher of the Year competition. A panel that includes at least one parent, teacher and administrator selects the Top 10 teachers from among these candidates. After a second round of judging, the district-level winner is selected.
Inside her classroom, the first thing you’ll notice is the library of books and children’s literature available to her students. “If you ask any of my students what my goal for them is, they will reply, ‘Mrs. Mennonno wants us to fall in love with books!’” she wrote in her Teacher of the Year portfolio. “When I help a child learn to read, I have changed the world. Not only have I offered a child the world through literacy, but offered the world a being who will embrace it.”
Throughout her career, Mennonno has used her ingenuity to increase student achievement and to create internationally-minded students who are able to think about their place in the world and how they can make it a better place to live. She has received numerous awards for her work, including a Lilly Teacher Creativity Fellowship Award, an Indianapolis Power and light Golden Apple Award and a United Way of Central Indiana Student Success Grant. She was instrumental in helping CFI School 2 become the first International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program in Indiana, and to earn a Blue Ribbon Award.
Mennonno will represent IPS in the Indiana Teacher of the Year competition.
