Our 2019 PRH Teacher Awards for Literacy Winners Celebrated at NCTE Convention
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Penguin Random House and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) have announced the recipients of the 2019 National Teacher Award for Lifelong Readers and 2019 Maya Angelou Teacher Award for Poetry. These awards recognize the nation’s most dynamic and resourceful teachers who use their creativity to inspire and successfully instill a lifelong love of reading and poetry in students. The Penguin Random House Teacher Awards for Literacy began in 2012 and have awarded more than $170,000 teacher grants to date. This is the first year the awards have been administered by both organizations.
The 2019 awards consist of two $10,000 first-place grants for each teacher’s respective school. In addition, Penguin Random House will make book donations to both winners. Twenty additional runners-up (10 for each Award) will each receive $1,000 grants in Penguin Random House books donations.
The 2019 winners are:
Cicely Lewis –$10,000 Lifelong Reader Teacher Award Recipient,
Educator/Library Media Specialist
Meadowcreek High School, Norcross, GA
Rick Coppola – $10,000 Maya Angelou Teacher Award for Poetry Grant Recipient
Language Arts Teacher
South Loop Elementary School, Chicago, IL
(left to right) Emily Kirkpatrick, NCTE Executive Director; Rick Coppola, Maya Angelou Teacher Award for Poetry Winner; Cicely Lewis, Teacher Award for Lifelong Readers Winner; and Michael Gentile, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Penguin Random House Education
Michael Gentile, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Penguin Random House Education, presented the winners with their awards at the NCTE Annual Convention during its opening session on November 21 in Baltimore, Maryland: “It’s an incredible honor to present this year’s Penguin Random House Teacher Awards for Literacy and to celebrate these educators for their unique programs motivating and inspiring the nurturing of lifelong readers. As the leading sponsor to this year’s NCTE Conference, we are proud to foster a universal passion for reading and to honor these extraordinary educators for their commitment to student learning.”
Emily Kirkpatrick, NCTE Executive Director, said, “Teachers of literacy are in the best position to inspire the readers in their care and these awards celebrate the work of two truly inspiring educators. It’s wonderful to see teaching expertise recognized in this way.”
As part of the first-place prize, Penguin Random House sponsored the winners’ conference registration, travel, and lodging expense so that Cicely Lewis and Rick Coppola could accept their awards at the conference, which was attended by more than 1,500 educators from around the country. Cicely and Rick spoke to the conference attendees about their initiatives that earned them the 2019 Penguin Random House Teacher Awards.
For more information regarding this year’s recipients, click here.