WEAC Members Receive National Award for Exceptional Teaching

Three Wisconsin educators received national recognition for teaching excellence.

Mathematics teacher Robert Hetzel, and science teachers James Schmitt and Christine Pace are recipients of the Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award.

Nationally, 120 educators received the award.

Hetzel has 14 years of teaching experience and has spent the past nine years at O'Keefe Middle School in Madison. He holds a master's degree in mathematics education from Columbia University Teachers College in New York and earned his bachelor's degree in 1980 from Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio.

He received the Madison School District's Distinguished Service Award for Middle School Teachers in 1999, and this past April was a member of a United States math delegation that visited China to discuss kindergarten through 12th-grade mathematics programming.

WEAC President Stan Johnson congratulates Eau Claire science teacher James Schmitt after Schmitt was awarded the Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award.

Schmitt has taught 11th- and 12th-grade physics for 11 years at North High School in Eau Claire. He holds a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

A recipient of a Kohl Teacher Fellowship this year, Schmitt also received the 2000-01 Radio Shack National Science Teacher of the Year award. The Radio Shack program recognized 110 outstanding science, mathematics, and technology teachers throughout the nation.

Christine Pace is a seventh-grade science teacher at East Junior High School in Wisconsin Rapids. She has taught at East Junior High School for nearly five years and has been teaching for almost seven years.

She earned both bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Pace received a Kohl Teacher Fellowship in 1999 and is the recipient of the Community Foundation School Plus Grant Award in 1998, 1999, and 2000.

The Milken National Educator Award was created to reward, retain, and attract the highest quality K-12 educators to the profession. Each Milken educator receives an unrestricted financial award of $25,000 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Los Angeles to participate in the annual Milken National Education Conference in June 2002.

Updated October 16, 2001