News Release
April 27, 2006
Fairview Elementary School Teacher Linda Alston One Of 10 Finalists In National Search For Award As "Extraordinary Teacher Of Underserved Kids In America"
Linda Alston, an all-day kindergarten teacher at Fairview Elementary School, has been named as one of 10 finalists in the search for the national Kinder Excellence in Teaching Award. The winner will receive $100,000, the largest unrestricted award in the nation for a teacher in Kindergarten through 12th grade.
Nancy and Rich Kinder of Houston, Texas established this award so an outstanding educator serving low-income children could be rewarded financially for his or her work. The award was created to honor Rich Kinder's mother, Edna C. Kinder, a former teacher in his hometown of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Nancy Kinder says, "Through this award, my husband Rich and I hope to shine a spotlight on the teaching profession, because we know that a great teacher can make a difference for thousands of children in a lifetime."
The Kinders have established a Blue Ribbon Panel of distinguished educators to determine which teacher will receive the $100,000 Kinder Excellence in Teaching Award.
The Blue Ribbon Panel includes Kati Haycock, Director of the Education Trust, and Howard Fuller, Director of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning, and seven others who will analyze the findings of the reviewer and will announce the Most Extraordinary Teacher on June 12, 2006.
In her nomination letter, Ruth White, a parent of a former student, wrote: "Every year I take teachers to Linda's classroom. Linda shows them that children can learn high academic skills. Linda teaches poor, disadvantaged children to read Shakespeare, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Langston Hughes and others. Students do multiplication, a trinomial cube, addition and subtraction into the thousands. Kindergarten students learn place value from units to the thousands using manipulatives. For Linda's students, nothing is too good or beautiful. Angelfish ice sculptures and fresh cut flowers have graced her classroom tables for luncheons. Linda's students read and test very high."
Wrote Mary Ann Bash, southwest area assessment specialist, about Linda Alston's approach: "This is a classroom in which young children learn to love one another, to honor their family, respect their community, challenge their minds, and discover their own gifts."
Alston is a graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C. and began teaching in Denver Public Schools in 1989. She has taught at Mitchell Elementary School (when it was home to the district's Montessori magnet); Wyatt-Edison Charter School, Marrama Elementary School and Fairview (2715 W. 11th Ave.) She also taught for a year in Lafayette, Colorado.
Alston has won the National Excellence in Teaching Award from the National Council of Negro Women (1996), the Walt Disney American Teacher Award (1995) and she was featured in a "Teaching Tolerance" video and book produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
For more information, contact the DPS Communications Office at 720-423-3414.