CEA Honors Teachers and Future Teachers
Every year CEA honors members and those entering the teaching profession with awards for their outstanding work and contributions. This year the award recipients were honored during a dinner banquet last week at CEA’s Summer Leadership Conference. Scroll down to watch videos and read about the teachers and future teachers honored that night.
Sally Rogers was not able to attend the awards banquet and therefore put together the video above. It includes her remarks as well as a song that she wrote about Prudence Crandall, accompanied by a video collage. Sally was awarded the Prudence Crandall Memorial Award by the CEA Human & Civil Rights Commission for her work designing a program which allows students and staff to better understand the culture, customs, and human rights issues in different countries. She is a music teacher at Pomfret Community School and has developed the school’s Cultural Arts Program in which the entire school community (preschool through grade eight) is immersed in a week-long study of a particular country.
Jack Stasio recently retired after 37-years teaching in Enfield and working tirelessly for his local, state, and national Associations. He was awarded the CEA Above and Beyond the Call of Duty Award by CEA’s Public Relations Commission for his outstanding professional contributions. Jack was the president of the Enfield Teachers Association for four terms and served on many committees for his local and CEA. He also served on the executive committee of the NEA American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN) Caucus. Jack is a member of the Wilamuctuc tribe and was a driving force behind the AI/AN Caucus’ decision to hold its annual conference in Connecticut this past June – the first time the conference was ever held in the Northeast. Listen to Jack’s remarks and stories as he accepts the award in the video above.
John McCormack CEA/NFIE Award for Teaching Excellence
This award recognizes, rewards, and promotes excellence in teaching and advocacy for the profession.
David Olio is a South Windsor High School English teacher. David is CEA’s nominee for the NEA Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence that will be presented in early 2010. He is known among his colleagues as a teacher who leads his students to believe in themselves and their ability to accomplish anything they want to do. David has designed curricula for the English department, pioneered an electronic portfolio, and has presented at state, regional and national conferences.
CEA Humanitarian Award for Leadership in Recent Immigrant Educational and Community Relationships
This award is given by the CEA Human & Civil Rights Commission to an individual who has demonstrated leadership in resolving social and educational problems as they relate to recent immigrants.
Debra Balletto, a special education teacher at Wilby High School in Waterbury, has spent the last five years advocating for people in need and working to improve the lives of those less fortunate than herself. Each year, she has spent one week volunteering with members of her church building homes for families devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Debra has also become a surrogate mother for a local refugee family from war-torn Burma. She has conducted English lessons in a small apartment living room and the class has grown from five to fifteen students. In addition to language instruction, she has helped the family members with basic needs such as filing for unemployment benefits when they were laid off, teaching them how to make medical appointments, and how to fill out paperwork when visiting a physician’s office or pharmacy.
Helen Keller – Anne Sullivan Memorial Award
This award from the CEA Human & Civil Rights Commission goes to teachers who have developed and/or implemented school wide and/or a community wide program that promotes equal educational opportunities for the disabled.
Melissa Lotstein & Jennifer Nagel teach music and special education, respectively, at Sedgwick Middle School in West Hartford. Together, these colleagues initiated the school’s Unified Theater that brings together a diverse group of general and special education students to act in student-written and directed skits that equally feature the talents of students with and without special needs. The Unified Theater program began in 2004 with 30 students and has grown to include more than 50 students this past year. The mother of a student with special needs who has participated in the Unified Theater stated that these two teachers took her daughter “under their wings and together created a production with singing, dancing, and role-playing that has left her with more self-confidence, more friends and memories that will stay with her into high school.”
Minority Scholarship Recipients
The Connecticut Education Foundation—CEA’s charitable organization— awards these scholarships to qualified minority candidates enrolled in accredited Connecticut colleges or universities who are planning teaching careers.
Matthew Wayne Smith, a graduate of Avon High School, will enter Central Connecticut State University this fall. He will major in elementary education and minor in math. After helping his grandmother in her daycare center Matthew knew that his future involved working with children.
Chandani Salsania was not able to attend the awards dinner. She is a recent graduate of Maloney High School in Meriden and will attend the Waterbury campus of the University of Connecticut this fall, majoring in elementary education. Chandani has lived on three continents and speaks six languages.
Phil DiGiovanni Future Teacher Scholarship Recipients
These scholarships are awarded by the Connecticut Education Foundation to benefit children of CEA members or staff planning teaching careers.
Sarah Ashley Lupo, the daughter of Deborah Lupo, a teacher in the Monroe Education Association, is entering her senior year at Central Connecticut State University. Her major is physical education with a health cross endorsement. She has volunteered in many schools and participated in sports-related conferences at which the inclusion of special needs children was the focus.
Matthew Lance is the son of Skip and Sue Lance, both Stratford Education Association members. Matthew is entering his junior year at Eastern Connecticut State University. He has volunteered in many roles, works as a student researcher, and has served on the Stratford Youth and Family Advisory Board.
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