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Steinmetz receives educator award

Monica Steinmetz
Monica Steinmetz

Monica Steinmetz, a teacher at St. Francis of Assisi School in Rochester Catholic Schools, Rochester, Minnesota, is a recipient of a 2020 WEM Outstanding Educator Award, an honor that is accompanied by a $15,000 award.

Steinmetz, a Jamestown native, was one of six educators honored by the WEM Foundation and Synergy & Leadership Exchange for outstanding accomplishments and contributions to student learning. She is one of two recipients of the Teacher Achievement Award, which recognizes exemplary teachers who support, inspire and assist students to attain greater learning as evidenced by student achievement.

Steinmetz has been an educator with Rochester Catholic Schools for 30 years and currently teaches sixth grade. She strives to develop a personal relationship with each child so that he or she knows he or she is loved and in a trusted place in the school community. She encourages students to embrace creativity to discover areas of passion, set realistic goals, take risks, celebrate failure and reach for greater potential. Helping students realize their gifts and talents and challenging them to use these to make the world a better place, is at the heart of Steinmetz's teaching, she said.

Steinmetz said her first area of focus is meeting the social and emotional needs of her students. She said academic achievement is more successful when her students are finding peace and balance in their social and emotional health. Steinmetz teaches a unit called a “Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset,” which begins with students writing student-developed SMART goals, with emphasis on wellness and mindfulness, establishing boundaries for safety, modeling how to ask for help and report concerns, and sets expectations for personal choices, behaviors and responsibilities.

Steinmetz is the daughter of Ollie and Loretta Jung. She attended Minnesota State University - Moorhead for her undergraduate degree and the University of Minnesota for her master's degree. She was a member of the Leadership Greater Rochester cohort in 2017.

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Educators are first nominated for the WEM Outstanding Educator Awards Program by students, parents, colleagues or community members. Those who accept the nomination provide additional information for consideration by Synergy & Leadership Exchange and a blue ribbon selection panel, which reviews and ranks the nominees. In addition to the six statewide honorees, additional educators have been selected as regional honorees for 2020.

Synergy & Leadership Exchange is a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering collaboration to advance the development of ethical citizens, providing educational resources, and celebrating achievement and best practices in Minnesota schools, businesses and communities. For more information on the WEM Outstanding Educator Awards and Synergy & Leadership Exchange, visit www.synergyexchange.org.

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