Honoring 16 Outstanding Teachers: 2012 Blackboard Awards

Almost all of us can remember a teacher who took the extra time to inspire us in some way. Many can recall several, which is why every year, Manhattan Media honors outstanding teachers throughout the city with our Blackboard Awards.

Susie Kavanaugh

Sixteen teachers from New York City private, charter and traditional public schools are being honored this year with Blackboards. This year, the 11th for the Blackboards, we received about 1,000 nominations from parents, students, principals and fellow teachers, and the final selections were made by editors and executives from four Manhattan Media publications—Our Town, West Side Spirit, Our Town Downtown and New York Family.

One of our honorees, the beloved Jon Goldman at The Beacon School, unfortunately died this spring, but we wanted to recognize his extraordinary work over the years.

In these pages, you’ll find 16 remarkable stories of teachers, including Susie Kavanaugh at Corlears Elementary School, who empties her classroom every year so her students can decide how to fill it up, and Ross Grosshart, an electrical engineer who changed jobs mid-career so he could teach college-level courses at Brooklyn Tech.

Several other Blackboard winners also chose teaching after starting on a different path, and their students and our city are better off because of it.

—Josh Rogers,
Editor, Backboard Awards

Barbara Ciner: Life Lessons Before Kindergarten

Rose Coffield: Pre-K Teacher Uses Video to Teach Kids About Play

Cara Beseda, She’ll Give a Student the Socks Off Her Feet

Lisa Harrelson, She Cheers Students, and They  Return the Favor

Lindsay Wener, Life Lessons from the South Side to the Upper East Side

Tonia Percy, Second Graders Are Happy  to See a Familiar Face

Laurel Nyeboe, Opening the Doors to the World

Susie Kavanaugh She Empties the Classroom  Before Filling Their Minds

Jonathan Goldman, Beacon Students Remember Jon, Their Inspirational Teacher

Sammie Smith, A Passion for Writing, Theater and Latin

Lois Eder, Special Teacher Making Strides with Students

Andrew Adler, Using Computers to Teach the Three Rs

Marija Kero, Bringing Math Alive by Connecting  it to Students’ Lives

Dr. Warren Wollman, Physics Doctorate Demystifies Mathematics at Rodeph Sholom

Bernadette Robine, From Paris to Brooklyn

Ross Grosshart, Engineer Goes Back to High School Mid-Career