At any moment, Amanda Raupe knows which skills her young students have mastered and where they need help. Raupe, a first-grade teacher at Hilldale Elementary School in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, studies assessment data regularly and uses it to create small, flexible learning groups that change as students reach their learning targets.
Raupe is the grade-level team leader and a school leadership team member. She is considered a vital contributor to turning Hilldale—a high-poverty pre-K through fifth-grade school in Putnam City Schools—around. In addition, more than half of the students are English learners (ELs). As such, Raupe dedicates core classroom time to phonics and phonemic awareness, as well as refines her math instruction with a grant she received from the Oklahoma Educators Credit Union. These approaches help to build firm foundations in these skills to excel in school and life. Students catch up in her class, with each surging up to at least four levels on reading assessment tests in one year, and many jumping to eight levels—double the expected growth rate.
Hilldale's student achievement progress in reading and math over time recently earned it the designation of Oklahoma Reward School and raised its state report card grade from a D in 2012 to a B in 2015.
Raupe is known as a go-to person at Hilldale for thoughtful, high-impact ideas born of intense research. Solutions-oriented, she has led recent changes in the school's literacy program, poring over new textbooks and materials and studying the rubric in order to make data-driven, substantive recommendations. Raupe mastered the LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) curriculum, completed its training modules, and helps colleagues implement the new curriculum in their classrooms. Calm and patient, Raupe is known as a role model for her peers and as one who ignites a passion for learning in both students and colleagues.
Her expertise and mentoring capabilities extend to Putnam City Schools and the community-at-large. She is a member of the district’s English Language Arts curriculum team, has mentored future educators from nearby universities and has contributed to presentations at national literacy conferences.
Raupe earned a bachelor's degree in elementary education from Oklahoma State University in 2011.
Press release: Amanda Raupe of Putnam City Schools Named 2016-17 Oklahoma Milken Educator
"Since [I received] the Milken Educator Award, students at..." (read more)
