2011 - Regional Teacher of the Year - JoAnne Buiteweg

Jo Anne has worked in Everett Public Schools for the past 20 years as a teacher and specialist. In 2007 she joined the staff at Sequoia, an alternative high school. She is a National Board Certified Teacher.



Jo Anne has always had a heart for students on the fringes of education, and in the early 90s was part of a team of educators at Everett High School that used interdisciplinary study to target students who were statistically “at risk.” Today, she has found a home at Sequoia where the emphasis is placed on skill mastery and student choice and the faculty operates as a collaborative whole rather than a group of isolated individuals.



These values are well aligned with Jo Anne’s own educational philosophies. She is passionate about meaningful assessment and grading systems that measure competency and empower students to evaluate themselves. Although Jo Anne has goals for her students’ achievement, she also works hard to balance what she knows they need with their own ambitions and mixes in just the right amount of emotional support that her students need to encourage academic risk taking.



The result is a uniquely thoughtful and refreshingly honest student teacher relationship. Because Jo Anne’s students know that she cares deeply not only for them, but for the adults they will become they actively seek out her critical feedback and she is able to be unflinchingly honest about their accomplishments.



Jo Anne is an exemplary teacher leader with a deep knowledge of school reform and the ability to guide her colleagues through difficult educational shifts such as “grading for learning” and the high school culminating exhibit with ease. At Sequoia, Jo Anne has guided the staff through a peer review of teaching units that has taken their professional development to the next level. All of these efforts are underpinned by Jo Anne’s conviction that the practice of education is in the public sphere and should be made transparent to the whole community.



Her colleague, Kevin Corbett, summarizes: “Jo Anne’s passion for teaching is surpassed only by the character and integrity she brings to the profession. As an exceptional teacher, leader and community representative, she not only possesses – she LIVES, the requirements for Teacher of the Year.”