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Cedar Ridge teacher wins national award
July 31 2007
This third grade teacher can’t help but be glad upon receiving a national award for teaching excellence from President George W. Bush. It’s in her name, after all: Betsy Glad.
Glad accepted her honor in Washington, D.C., as one of two Oklahoma teachers and 93 in the nation who were honored with the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. Glad was honored for K-6 Mathematics.
“It’s the highlight of my teaching career,” said Glad, who teaches at Cedar Ridge Elementary School. Spending a week in the nation's capital, which included dinner at the State Department, Glad said she feels like she has been treated like royalty. As part of the honor, she received a $10,000 personal cash award.
"I feel like I'm representing all of the teachers in Oklahoma," she said.
Stacy Darling, who teaches at Eisenhower Elementary School in Norman, is the other Oklahoma recipient of the award.
Principal Ellen Crager nominated Glad for the honor and called her an outstanding teacher.
Each year, the President of the United States recognizes outstanding kindergarten–6th-grade or 7th–12th-grade mathematics and science teachers by bestowing upon them the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST). The PAEMST program is administered by the National Science Foundation (NSF) on behalf of the White House.
The more than 3,700 awardees selected since the program’s inception in 1983 are a premier group of highly qualified teachers who have both deep content knowledge of the subjects they teach and the ability to motivate and enable students to be successful in these areas.
Collectively, they reflect the expertise and dedication of the Nation’s teaching corps, and they demonstrate the positive impact of excellent teachers on student achievement.
Earlier last year, Glad and Denise Thomas of Jarman were selected as finalists for the honors – Glad in mathematics and Thomas in science.
“This was a major honor for one of our teachers and almost unheard of to have two recognized in one year,” explained Todd Nelson, director of Student Assessment.
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