The Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching would be an honor and a privilege to receive. This award recognizes excellence in teaching and leadership, both areas that I continually strive to improve and develop. I would be thrilled to accept the award and would look forward to the opportunities it would bring to develop myself professionally, to network with other professionals, and to ultimately work toward best practices for all students in science education.

Mary Janis Elmendorf AFB, AK | K-6, Science, 2010

The official biography below was current at the time of the award.

Mary Janis has been a teacher for the past 21 years, with the last 12 years spent teaching kindergarten at Orion Elementary School in the Anchorage School District. Mary has been a member of the Science Leadership Cadre, which reviewed science curricula. She was a pilot teacher for the newly chosen curriculum, which was adopted districtwide for kindergarten. Since 2005, Mary has been a Science Kit Trainer for the district, training new teachers in one of the three science kits at the kindergarten level. Mary began working on the Standards Based Assessment and Reporting Committee in the science area in 2006 and continued until the project ended in 2010. Mary has hosted full-year student interns from the University of Alaska, Anchorage for the past 3 years. She also mentors a second-year teacher who is new to the Anchorage School District, and she is a member of the Advanced Mentor Cohort. Mary has a B.A. in elementary education with a minor in biology from the University of Puget Sound. She has an M.Ed., Phi Kappa Phi, in special education from the University of Alaska, Anchorage. She is certified in elementary education, special education-cognitively impaired, and special education-learning disabled, kindergarten through eighth grade.

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