The Presidential Award for teaching: two Mishawaka teachers

2017 · 2020

The honor: The Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching — administered by the National Science Foundation for the White House, and the highest honor the United States gives its kindergarten-through-twelfth-grade mathematics and science teachers — has come to teachers in this city's schools twice. The White House release of 8 February 2022, announcing the 2020 awards, lists under Indiana, verbatim: "Sara Hoover, Beiger Elementary School, Mishawaka, Indiana (Science)." Hoover teaches at Beiger Elementary, a School City of Mishawaka school inside the city, and serves as a Project Lead the Way facilitator; her award is the 2020 science award for Indiana, and it enters at full strength, seated in a Mishawaka classroom. The earlier award stands at the city's other school system: John Gensic, a science teacher at Penn High School — the Penn-Harris-Madison high school that stands in Mishawaka — holds the 2017 award for Indiana (Science), carried on the White House list of that cohort's recipients and on the award program's own awardee record; the district's record shows him named an Indiana finalist in October 2017 and recognized in Washington on 17 October 2019, when the delayed cohorts were honored together. Two Presidential Awards in one small city's schools is a distinction few Indiana districts of any size can match, and the ledger prints it at exactly that size — no more, and no less.

Sources:

1. The White House (Biden administration archives), release of 8 February 2022, "President Biden Honors 117 Individuals with Presidential Awards in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering" — the Indiana line for Sara Hoover, Beiger Elementary School, Mishawaka (Science), as quoted above.
2. The White House (Trump administration), Presidential Awards release for the 2017 cohort — John Gensic, Penn High School, among the Indiana recipients (Science).
3. Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (paemst.org), awardee records — Gensic (2017, Science) and Hoover (2020, Science).
4. Penn-Harris-Madison School Corporation records — Gensic an Indiana finalist, October 2017; the national award and the Washington recognition of 17 October 2019.
5. Indiana University South Bend, class notes — Hoover at Beiger Elementary and her Project Lead the Way facilitation.