Teacher of the Year brings social activism into class
Published: November 1, 2005
A Bloomfield educator praised for bringing social activism into her classroom is Connecticut’s 2006 Teacher of the Year.
Mary Kay Rendock, a fifth-grade teacher at Bloomfield’s Carmen Arace Intermediate School, was named the top teacher by state education officials during an assembly at the school on Monday.
“It was a very big surprise,” said Rendock, 42, of Windsor. “I’m out-of-control happy about this.”
The language arts teacher was chosen from more than 48,000 public school teachers in Connecticut. She will represent the state in the competition for the national Teacher of the Year honor.
“She is a teacher who cares not only about the academic achievements but also about the social and emotional climate in her classroom,” Betty Sternberg, commissioner of the state Department of Education, said in an interview Monday.
Sternberg said Rendock was chosen, in part, for her ability “to see that the classroom is not the only place for learning” by incorporating community projects into the curriculum.
Rendock’s students have sent care packages and corresponded to a soldier in Iraq, and sold paper balloons in the school cafeteria for Light the Nights, a benefit for the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society. Her students also held a fundraiser for pediatric cancer by selling paper bracelets for Alex’s Lemonade Stand.
Rendock was inspired by her mother, a former teacher at Bloomfield High School.
“I think I was very blessed growing up,” she said. “I want the same for my students. I want them to have all kinds of opportunities and to grow up as productive citizens. I just don’t want them to be academic. I want them to be great people.”
Rendock has worked at Bloomfield schools for 20 years. Her students have included Baltimore Ravens football player Jamal Lewis and Connecticut Sun basketball star Nykesha Sales.
“She is really just an incredible teacher and person,” said Krista Bauchman, 25, a fifth-grade teacher at Carmen Arace. “She is extremely motherly. She wants to help everybody.”
Rendock has a master’s degree in technology and media from Central Connecticut State University and a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Eastern Connecticut State University.
She will be officially honored during an awards ceremony at The Bushnell in Hartford on Nov. 21.
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