It’s that time of year again...time for the announcement of the 2008 Golden Apple Awards!

These awards are always amazing cornucopias of good teaching stories, but one I found particularly inspiring this year was that of Stanley O. McNaughton Golden Apple winner, Mike Town. An A.P. Environmental Science teacher at Redmond High School, Town personally advocates for all students to have access to rigorous A.P. courses and, because of his efforts, a full 50 percent of the student body is enrolled in one of his six A.P classes and 90 percent of his students score well enough to earn college credit.

Under Town’s guidance—and starting from his “simple idea” to invigorate the student body with pride in their environment and their school”—Redmond students launched the Cool Schools campaign. The campaign challenged teachers to reduce their classroom’s carbon dioxide emissions by 2000 pounds, with a plan to achieve a 46-ton reduction. Ultimately, the electricity bills revealed that over 72 tons of carbon dioxide emissions were prevented. This “green school” concept has been replicated at 17 other district schools and has received the Presidential Environmental Youth Award, first and second prizes in Washington State University’s “Imagine Tomorrow” contest, and entry into the Congressional record.

Can someone get this guy a medal? Oh right, that’s what we’re here for!

And now, Mr. Hoffman, the envelope please…the individual Golden Apple winners are:

• Robert W. Adamson, Principal, Terrace Heights Elementary, East Valley Yakima School District
• David Anderson, Principal, Mount Vernon High School, Mount Vernon School District
• Linda M. Evans, Teacher, grade 3, Marcus Whitman Cowiche Elementary School, Highland School District
• Marjorie R. Lamarre, Teacher, grade 5, John Muir Elementary School, Seattle School District
• Debra D. Renner, Sign Language Interpreter, grades 9-12, Evergreen High School, Evergreen School District
• Megan E. Vogel, Science Department Chair, Biology/Ecology, grades 10-12, Ballard High School, Seattle School District
• Robert R. Yuong, Teacher, Mathematics, grades 9-12, Henry Foss High School, Tacoma School District

Congratulations to all the winners for their dedication and innovation! To read more about the Golden Apple Award and its recipients visit KCTS’s website.

Special thanks should go to PEMCO Insurance for their continued sponsorship of these awards. The Stanley O. McNaughton Golden Apple Award was named for the past PEMCO C.E.O, and his son Stan McNaughton, PEMCO’s current CEO, sits on Partnership for Learning’s board of directors.