At this year’s Blackboard Awards, an event honoring 18 educators from around the city for their outstanding work, a new tradition was created in the form of dozens of small feet clambering onto the stage to say thanks to their teachers. Excited students cheered on the award recipients and accompanied them onstage, giving the audience a window into how these teachers interact with the students who so clearly adore them.

Monday night’s event at Fordham Law School, hosted by NBC correspondent and mother of two young children Kate Snow, highlighted the tireless efforts of the group of winners selected from over 1,200 applications. It was the first time that students and parents were called to present some of the awards, and the students were thrilled to be honoring their favorite teachers. The teachers were equally happy to be recognized by their charges.

“I’m very lucky,” said Rodrigo Alonzo, teacher at the Speyer Legacy School, surrounded by his giggling 1st graders. “I get to come to work every morning and ask questions and be greeted by questions. Like, how did the Atlantic Ocean get its name? What’s the difference between a square and a rhombus? When are we going to have snacks?”

A few speakers pointed out how tenuous the positions of many great teachers are amid the fear of layoffs and budget cuts. Vice President of the United Teachers Federation Karen Alford presented an award, and said, “With teachers being vilified across the country, it’s so nice to have an event celebrating teachers and all they do.”

City Council Member Gale Brewer noted that she had spent the day in budget hearings and was working to preserve teaching positions and resources for the city.

One teacher took the opportunity to emphasize a focus on individual learning over test results. Theresa Furman, who teaches 2nd grade at the Upper West Side’s P.S. 87, spoke of an email she received from a parent, thanking her for encouraging her students to view school as a place to be happy, to think and create.

“Maybe the people who are emphasizing standardized testing so much would think about that,” Furman said, to much applause.

A constant theme was the importance of parent and administrative support to each of the winning teachers. Many thanked their communities for helping them create a positive environment for their students.

“There’s this magic, this undeniable charisma created in a classroom when kids start learning,” said winner Anne Looser, special education teacher at Lehman High School. “I first wanted to teach kids about history, because I wanted to teach students about the Revolution. Then I started teaching special ed, and I realized, this is the revolution.”

John DeMatteo was recognized for his work as the physical education teacher who brought sports to the Manhattan Academy of Technology, even starting a surfing team at the Chinatown middle school. DeMatteo thanked his parents, both New York City schoolteachers, and acknowledged his unusual path to teaching. After 9/11, he quit a lucrative Wall Street job to go into teaching.

“I know now that success is not written in a pay stub,” DeMatteo said. “It’s in the hearts and minds of students who can say those four words: ‘I can,’ and ‘I will.’ Hearing those words from my students makes me the richest man in the world.”

The Blackboard Awards, now in its 10th year, are Manhattan Media’s way of honoring the outstanding educational work that never seems to get the attention it deserves. Every spring we single out just a few of the city’s great teachers, and this year the Blackboards take on a heightened significance as thousands of our public school teachers face layoffs—including two of our 18 honorees. We certainly hope these cuts to all of our schools can be avoided.

This year we received an unprecedented number of nominations—over 1,000—from parents, students, teachers and principals in the city’s private, religious and public schools. Regrettably, we were not able to award every deserving teacher, but our editors and executives were heartened to read so many inspiring comments about the individual teachers. All of the nominees have received a well-deserved honorable mention and we have posted their names at www.blackboardawards.com.

If there is a common theme for these 18 Blackboard recipients (and probably most outstanding teachers), it is that they are able to form connections with each of his or her students, no matter how large the classroom.

In the fall we will be paying tribute to the city’s great schools and principals, but this spring we celebrate our extraordinary teachers.

2011 Blackboard Award Winners
GENERAL EXCELLENCE

Rob Snyder
St. Luke’s School

Theresa Furman
P.S. 87

Rodrigo Alonzo
The Speyer Legacy School

Lindsay Korn
Growing Up Green Charter School

Denise Martinez
Blessed Sacrament School

Linda Adler
P.S. 40

Rasheda Lyons
P.S. 11/Purvis J. Behan Elementary School

Suzanne Mir
Corpus Christi School

Maryann Diglio
Staten Island Academy

Derek Bruun
P.S. 166

SPECIALTY CATEGORIES

Technology/Science
Bill LaMonte
Millennium High School

Math
Eliza Kuberska
Hunter College High School

Music/Art
Stephen Cedermark
Carroll School, P.S. 58

Special Education
Anne Looser
Herbert H. Lehman High School

English/Language Arts
Meredith Hill
Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science and Engineering

History/Social Studies
Thandi Guimaraes
The Renaissance Charter School

Foreign Languages
Rosa Torres
International School of Brooklyn

Physical Education
John De Matteo
P.S. 126/Manhattan Academy of Technology

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By Linnea Covington

Math teacher Eliza Kuberska’s intro to her job was serendipitous. After getting her master’s degree at New York University in 2001, she had already obtained a position at another school but decided to interview at Hunter College High School anyway. She spoke with David Hankin and described the connection she felt as, “I almost heard music and I realized I found my guru and he was going to teach me.” And now, she does the same for others.

“Ms. Kuberska has taught me so much and her bubbly, enthusiastic personality is absolutely contagious,” said Marianna Zhang, a freshman in the extended honors math class. “She is not afraid of spontaneity, and, most importantly, she makes a personal connection with every student by walking around the room and looking at us straight in the eye.”

Eliza Kuberska helps students overcome their fear of math. Photo by Andrew Schwartz.

Teaching mathematics isn’t an easy feat, but having a real love for the subject helps. Kuberska, 35, has always had a math-oriented mind and, she said, as a child her family often discussed the subject. Born in Poland to a chemist father and a literature-loving mother, Kuberska said she caught on to math from a very young age. And when the family moved to New York when she was 17, it helped her communicate.

“Coming here with a linguistic barrier, I was able to use math as my language, which I could communicate more easily through than English,” she said from her New Jersey home.

In college, Kuberska fell in love with physics and, as her studies continued, she considered going into math finance. Then 9/11 happened and that career didn’t seem like a viable option. Instead, she decided to try teaching and has never looked back.

“I feel like my work at Hunter is one of the greatest gifts someone could give me,” she said. “The kids feel like part of my family, and I think they know that I like them and they respond to that.”

Based on the number of comments her students made about her teaching skills, her assessment isn’t far off.

One student nominating her for a Blackboard Award wrote, “You can’t dislike this woman. She has a great sense of humor, never failing to energize the deadest, sleep-deprived class, and she’s always glad to help students that are struggling.”

Jessie Frank, who was in her 9th-grade math class, added, “She pushed me harder than any teacher I’ve ever had, but I could only appreciate it and love her more, because it was so undoubtedly evident she had our best interest at heart. She made me want to do well in her class, and her contagious passion for math made me love the subject as well.”

Part of Kuberska’s success is due to her outlook on teaching the subject. She explained that many of her kids had never really learned to study math in middle school. So when they get to high school suddenly the work is much harder, which makes them think they are bad at it.

“A colleague of mine said 80 percent of the teaching is made up of psychology and the other 20 percent is actual math, and that is absolutely correct,” she said.

For her, personally, she hopes to learn with the kids and improve her own “growth curve.” And one day before she dies, she said she wants to understand the general theory of relativity. If she teaches herself as well as these kids, there is no doubt she will get it.

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Eliza Kuberska
Hunter College
High School
71 E. 94th St.

By Emily Johnson

“Life is never dull in a high school, “ Bill LaMonte said with a smile, shouldering a bag full of graded tests and setting off through the mass of chattering students.

A beaded bracelet peeks out from his sleeve, a souvenir of his days working in a rural Tanzanian village for the Peace Corps. In the 10 years since then, teaching has taken him to China, India, the Bronx and finally to Millennium High School in the Financial District, where his impact over the last three years has made him one of this year’s Blackboard Award winners.

Bill LaMonte. Photo by Andrew Schwartz.

“I try to show my students what learning is really about,” LaMonte said. “A lot of times kids are so stuck in their bubble of iPods and subways and Starbucks. It’s not just the classroom, it’s the global perspective.”

It’s this focus on educating the whole person rather than simply teaching biology that has won the admiration of his students, their parents and his fellow teachers. “Mr LaMonte even inspires the parents,” one of his nominators wrote. “He has been incredibly supportive in helping [my son] with academic as well as social issues,” wrote another. Senior Star Estrella, 18, calls him her favorite teacher.

“He’s a really interactive teacher. It’s never, ‘Take out your textbooks and let’s take notes,’” said Estrella, who took his advanced biology class last year.

Estrella will attend DePauw University this fall on a full scholarship. LaMonte wrote a letter of recommendation for her application.

“Some teachers, when you’re not in their class anymore, they sort of forget you,” she said. “But when he sees me in the hall, he’s always like, ‘Hi, Star. How’re you doing, Star?’ It’s nice.”

As he walks through Millennium’s halls, he stops regularly to check in with the students he passes. “You going to really try today?” he asks one. “Smile!” he tells another, grinning until he elicits a giggle.

But in the classroom, his upbeat yet firm demeanor makes it clear who’s in charge.

“I think what is so impressive about him as a teacher is that when you walk into his classroom, more often than not you hear the students talking, not him,” said Sarah Petersen, a fellow Millennium teacher who was also posted to Tanzania with LaMonte in the Peace Corps.

Before he came to Millennium, he taught at a school in the Bronx where he worked with students to keep them out of trouble with the law. He also prepared a class of 7th graders for a high-school level standardized science test. Nearly all of them passed.

“He carried the breakdown of the scores around in his pocket for a while,” Petersen said. “He was so proud of them.”

LaMonte has been teaching in New York City long enough that he isn’t in danger of being let go in the new budget cuts, but he still worries about how the cuts will affect the schools.

“Every time we make that choice, it’s against the child’s best interest,” he said.

He says he was honored and surprised to be chosen for a Blackboard.

“And at the same time, slightly embarrassed too, because I know a lot of other teachers who deserve this recognition,” he said. “I work hard, that’s all I know. I love teaching. It’s a passion and it’s something I want to do until I die.”

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Bill LaMonte
Millennium High School
75 Broad St.

By David Gibbons

By any measure, the Renaissance Charter School is a shining example of its kind in New York City. Thandi Guimaraes is a lynchpin of the school’s success, fulfilling multiple roles.

Guimaraes has taught required courses in history, government and economics to 11th and 12th graders at Renaissance in Jackson Heights for the past 10 years. She is also senior advisor, ushering each year’s graduating class of about 45 students through their final year of high school. She is a member of the student support team, which deals with individual cases of hardship and discipline, and faculty advisor to the student government.

Thandi Guimaraes. Photo by Andrew Schwartz.

“She consistently challenges her students to think deeper and think differently,” said Renaissance principal Stacey Gauthier. “Her demeanor is one of calming strength. She has a quiet way of keeping students’ attention—even when ‘senioritis’ hits.”

Rebekah Oakes said her son, Kadin Wisniewski, worked harder on papers for Guimaraes’ class than any other, and often enthusiastically brought home discussions started there.

“Thandi really made me think—not just analyze and infer but take an idea and think about its larger implications in life,” said Wisniewski, headed to City College. “I’ll always remember one day when she went around the class and asked everyone what role religion played in their lives… It wasn’t so much the content of our talk that stuck with me but the fact that my friends and I continued the discussion all day, long after class was finished.”

The Socratic Method is at the core of Guimaraes’ teaching philosophy and practice. In fact, when asked to expound on these, she began with a quote from the ancient Greek philosopher himself: “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”

Growing up in Ozone Park, Guimaraes, who declined to giver her age, recalls observing members of her community from all walks of life helping people in need. Consequently, she decided on a career as a human rights lawyer and was headed for law school after graduating from St. John’s with a B.A. in economics. But her experience teaching adult literacy classes altered her course.

Among her students, “There was one grandmother and another woman who was an ex-addict single mother with several young children. They did not have high school diplomas, they had large families to support, yet they were very determined, hopeful, full of spirit and kind towards one another. It was the best two years of my life to date, and law school took a back seat,” she said.

She got her education masters at Queens College in 1995. After a brief stint in a large high school, she transferred to Renaissance and the rest is history.

For Karen Campos, who graduated with the class of 2010, and is currently completing her freshman year at Boston University’s School of Management, Guimaraes surpassed her roles as teacher, senior advisor and mentor, to become a mother figure: “She was always available to listen about academics and personal challenges. When you had no one to share your distresses with, she was always there. She would give you what my friends and I would call ‘the Thandi look’ and you knew you were going to spend a long afternoon in her room after classes were over just talking.”

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Thandi Guimaraes
Renaissance Charter School
35-59 E. 81st St., Queens

By Alan Krawitz

As one of the first teachers at Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science and Engineering, 6th-grade teacher Meredith Hill is having a real impact and teaching much more than English, according to parents, students and colleagues alike.

Hill, 25, began teaching when the school opened in 2007. Advanced students have the option to also take courses at Columbia University, a partner with the city in running the public school.

Meredith Hill. Photo by Andrew Schwartz.

Hill, who teaches English to about 96 6th graders, said, “It’s simply wonderful being able to have impact on these kids.”

Parent Mark Kerman said Hill is an “extremely enthusiastic teacher who inspires her students to not only work hard but to also dramatically improve their verbal, written and critical-thinking abilities.”

Hill, whose mother was also a public school kindergarten teacher, said almost 50 percent of the school’s students are native Spanish speakers.

Class readings reflect Hill’s focus on social issues. Some recent titles include The Breadwinner, the story of an 11-year-old Afghani girl forced to become the breadwinner of her family in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Yet another story focused on Mexican siblings crossing the border illegally into the U.S.

“I want to have students take on writing projects that will have impact,” Hill said, pointing out that she incorporates online publishing, podcasting and letter writing to public officials as part of the curriculum. “I want to give kids a voice in the world.”

Effective writing, she adds, can be an amazing tool to help kids take action.

“I like to give my kids a forum to use writing for something that matters to them,” she said.

Maria Herrera, PTA co-president and one of the people who nominated Hill for a Blackboard Award, wrote: “Meredith manages her classes in a way that engages the more advanced students while bringing the more struggling students along as well… I just can’t think of a more dedicated, able and energetic teacher.”

Drawing upon her background in music and community theater, Hill also coordinates the school’s creative arts program. She has directed performances with casts of 50-plus kids, with recent productions including Thoroughly Modern Millie, Junior and Seussical.

“I like to make the productions as professional as possible,” she said.

“She is a great English teacher, but has quite a talent as a dancer and theater teacher as well,” wrote one student who nominated Hill.

Having grown up on a horse farm in Haverhill, Mass., Hill wanted her students to have an understanding of how food gets to their table.

So she helped start a rooftop garden three years ago at the school, tapping a formerly abandoned plot owned by the city, and then attaining a Green Thumb Certification for the garden. “My students get involved in urban landscaping, gardening and composting,” Hill said. “We’re planting edibles and I’ve already had the kids make pasta from scratch.”

Eventually, says Hill, her kids will publish their own food magazine.

As a fourth-year teacher, Hill could get laid off this summer, but she sounded more concerned about how the layoffs would affect the school rather than herself.

“If cuts go into effect, it could seriously alter the atmosphere at the school,” Hill said. “Kids are our future leaders. We work with them day in and day out. I don’t know why anyone would want to change the great community we have now.”

Hill said the seniority rules are inherently unfair. “Kids need consistency and teachers that are professionals,” she said.

She said many new teachers are “incredible” and that teachers should be evaluated more on what they’ve done and their impact on students.

But regardless, Hill says, “I’m not planning on leaving teaching anytime soon.”

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Meredith Hill
Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science and
Engineering
425 W. 123rd St.

By Paulette Safdieh

As a high school educator for children with special needs, Anne Looser has given back to the New York City community more than you might expect for her short 29 years. After just five years of teaching English literature to the freshmen at Herbert H. Lehman High School in the Bronx, Looser is often praised for her compassionate approach to education.

“I’ve always been interested in social justice issues,” said Looser, who previously worked with the homeless population in Harlem. “Some of the people I worked with couldn’t fill out welfare applications because they couldn’t read.”

Anne Looser. Photo by Karl Crutchfield.

These experiences encouraged Looser to pursue a career in education. She graduated in 2007 with a master’s degree in Urban Education from Mercy College.

Looser originally wanted to teach history but when offered a position in special education, she seized the opportunity.

“I didn’t know it at the time, but special education was an outgrowth of the Civil Rights movement which I had studied over the years,” said Looser. “The movement was all about providing support to those in need. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that I ended up where I did.”

Looser taught special-education teacher support services at a south Bronx school before moving to Lehman. She now teaches English and literature to 9th graders who range between 14 and 17 years old.

Her hard work and dedication are noticed and appreciated by Looser’s colleagues.

“Anne is always ready to lend a hand to fellow educators in need of assistance. She has a wealth of knowledge borne from her experiences in the classroom,” said fellow teacher James Rodriguez. “Her easygoing and compassionate style makes her a favorite among her students as they can see that she is someone who cares.”

“I like being involved with what happens with students outside of school,” she said. Looser is a big supporter of extracurricular activities and trusts they can bring out the best in students. “These services are the best ways to get kids learning and reading,” she said, drawing on the Anime Club as an example. “Maybe it’s not Chaucer and Shakespeare, but you can draw kids in and eventually they’ll get there.”

Unlike other newer teachers, Looser is not in danger of losing her job because special education teachers are not being fired, but unfortunately, the school is facing teacher layoffs and has been hit hard by budget cuts. Over the last three years, Lehman lost $6 million and many extracurricular clubs were slashed.

“I don’t know how it’s functioning,” she said. “We didn’t have that kind of money to begin with.”

Looser, the United Federation of Teachers’ chapter chairperson at the school, argued that teachers and unions are too often pegged as the problem, and new education policies in New York aren’t helping the children.

“The teachers are on the frontlines every day with our youth,” she said, adding that they need to be acknowledged more for their hard work.

Regardless of such frustrations, Looser’s five years at Lehman flew by. “I used to think I would be a history teacher, teaching about the revolution,” said Looser. “I quickly realized I’m part of a revolution, not teaching it.”

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Anne Looser
Herbert H. Lehman
High School
3000 E. Tremont Ave., Bronx

By Max Sarinsky

John De Matteo didn’t move far when he quit his job on Wall Street eight years ago to become athletic director at P.S. 126 in Chinatown. But the two jobs could have been a world apart.

“I knew I wanted to be in a school that didn’t really have anything,” De Matteo said about his decision. The school had almost no competitive sports program at the time, but De Matteo set his sights high.

“I said I wanted to build a sports program like they have in the suburbs,” he said.

John De Matteo’s policy is to never cut a student from a team. Photo by Andrew Schwartz.

So he did, and then some.

The school, also called Manhattan Academy of Technology, currently has over 50 sports teams in over two dozen different sports—from soccer and baseball to non-traditional sports including surfing, cycling and table tennis. De Matteo said that 95 percent of students in the K-8 school participate on a sports team.

De Matteo attended elementary school in the Bronx and said that, unlike most physical education teachers, he did not stand out athletically. He credited this experience with his drive to increase participation in sports.

“I was a scrawny little runt of a kid,” he said. “I feel for these children because I was one of them.”

De Matteo, 37, enforces a strict policy against cutting students from teams. In class, he often teaches students simpler and more accessible versions of popular sports, like volleyball with beach balls.

“Old-school phys ed is over,” he said. “If we don’t make it fun, we’re going to lose our children.”

In a recent 5th-grade class, De Matteo split the class in two teams and led them in a game involving rolling beanbags at other players’ feet. Players who were hit by a moving beanbag had to do step-ups or jumping jacks before reentering the game.

With assistance via a grant from the National Football League, De Matteo converted a former supply closet into a fitness room with exercise bikes connected to video game consoles (students who pedal most quickly move fastest in the game). He said that at a time when students were more likely to play video games in their spare time than sports, it was important to cater the activity to their interests.

Susan Crowson, whose son Ben is in 6th grade, described Ben’s experience on the basketball team, noting that teamwork was constantly reinforced. De Matteo did not coach the team, she said, but his philosophy reigned.

“There were 23 kids on the middle-school basketball team and everybody played the same amount,” she said. “[De Matteo] motivates his kids and just really makes them want to try… He brings them all together as a team.”

Jake Jiler, an 8th-grade student and a member of several sports teams, said that physical education with De Matteo is “different from my old school.” He explained, “We did the same five things at gym.”

De Matteo said that his next big goal is to expand athletic opportunities to students across the city. He has already founded nine middle-school sports leagues and organizes a track and field meet that draws thousands of participants from over 200 schools. His mission, he said, is to teach students that sports are about more than competition and that, at heart, are about cooperation.

As Crowson explained, “He’s using sports as a tool to teach kids what’s really important.”

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John De Matteo
P.S. 126/I.S. 126-Manhattan Academy of Technology
80 Catherine St.

By Linnea Covington

Not every kid can say they live in an episode of Glee, but the ones in Stephen Cedermark’s class at P.S. 58 have an elementary version of it, and no one is complaining.

“Through everything he does it’s obvious how much Mr. C truly enjoys sharing his passion for music with our kids,” said Vivian Manning-Schaffel, whose 7-year-old son Dylan is in one of Cedermark’s classes.

Parent Brogan Ganley mirrored the sentiment and said, “Blossom, my daughter, had such a hard time getting out the door for school, but with chorus in the morning she is at the door telling me to hurry up. We absolutely love him.”

Stephen Cedermark. Photo by Daniel S. Burnstein.

Since Cedermark started at P.S. 58 in Carroll Gardens two years ago, he has taught music to pre-kindergarten through 2nd graders, directed the 2nd- and 3rd- grade choir, and organized the music for 5th-grade graduation. His kids have performed all sorts of songs, from Madonna’s “Holiday,” to Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror,” to Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” and yes, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing,” a Glee classic—though to be fair, Cedermark said he hasn’t seen the show.

The feeling of gratitude is mutual and for Cedermark, the opportunity to work at the Carroll School has been a dream. He lived in the tri-state area the first 13 years of his life before moving to North Carolina with his family. As soon as he was ready to go to college, Cedermark, 29, knew he had to get back to New York City and pursue the performing arts, which he did at New York University. He still hadn’t found his teaching path, but when he took a job as a tutor in the America Reads Program, he fell in love with being in the classroom and spending time with kids. So, instead of following a career in lights, he attended Teachers College at Columbia University and shortly after got his first job at a school in Spanish Harlem. He worked there a year before transferring to P.S. 58.

“This is not a music program in your typical New York City school,” said Cedermark. “And it’s great for me because I wanted to work in a public school where the arts were appreciated.”

The way Cedermark talks about his kids, it sounds like they are teenagers, not 6- to 9-year-olds. He speaks of their harmony and ability to grasp the lyrics of songs. And, because the school has a dual-language program, in this case French (which is also Cedermark’s second language), he is able to teach his students songs in both tongues.

“There are kids that are French-speaking and don’t speak English at all,” he said, referring to the French, Haitian, Swiss and African immigrants. “It’s nice to help make their transition easier and empower them through song.”

The students even did “The Anvil Chorus” from the Italian opera Il Trovatore, when Cedermark brought in people from the Metropolitan Opera.

He also had Judy Kuhn, who sang in Disney’s 1995 animated film Pocahontas, come in and talk to the kids.

After all, he said, “I feel like my parents’ confidence and support in my ability and artistry was important.” And he hopes to help give his students the same encouragement.

Cedermark is in line to be laid off at the end of the year, a prospect he called “nerve racking. I am hoping the mayor does what’s in the best interest of the children… The budget could be refined in many ways that could save teachers.”

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Stephen Cedermark
Carroll School, P.S. 58
330 Smith St., Brooklyn