Edina's Jackie Roehl Named Minnesota Teacher of the Year: 2012 in Review

Edina Patch covered a lot of different stories, topics and events throughout 2012. That said, there were a few that stood out as the most interesting, important, touching or possibly infamous to our readers.

And as we near the end of 2012, we're looking back at those articles. The following is one of those stories.

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Jackie Roehl has achieved something not a single other Edina Public Schools teacher can lay claim to: She has been crowned Minnesota's Teacher of the Year.

Roehl, who teaches 10th-grade English at Edina High School, was selected Sunday, May 6, as the 48th winner of the prestigious award by Education Minnesota. It was a first-ever Teacher of the Year designation for the typically award-rich district.

"It is through spreading ideas about culturally responsive teaching in my classroom and with my colleagues that I feel I have made my greatest contribution to education," Roehl said in a statement.

When Patch talked with Roehl after she had been named a finalist for the award earlier this year, she still wasn't sure if she had much of a shot. She joked the judges might not want to pick a teacher from Edina because, well, it's Edina.

"If they read my essays, I'm not the typical 'Edina' teacher," Roehl said. "I went for the idea that education is a civil right for all people."

Read the remainder of the story here.

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