Sixth-grade teacher Crystal McCoin has helped her students benefit from a wide range of instructional best practices and learning opportunities at Route 66 Elementary School in Moriarty, New Mexico. A leader in the use of assessment data to drive instruction, McCoin has helped many of her students achieve significant academic growth on the Northwest Evaluation Association's (NWEA) short-cycle assessment in reading, math and language arts. At the end of each year, McCoin and her students host a World's Fair, to which the entire school and parents are invited. During the fair, students demonstrate their research on various countries, depicting customs, telling stories and offering foods characteristic of each country. McCoin also organizes and coordinates Family Math Nights and a Science Fair that involves the participation of parents, staff and students. Collaborating with a special education teacher in an inclusion setting, McCoin has helped special education students achieve substantial academic growth. She is chair of the Math/Science Goal Team and a member of the Moriarty-Edgewood School District's Math Leadership Team. She has been instrumental in training and assisting other goal team leaders at the school and has presented to district administrators about her own team's work in implementing the Baldridge approach to managing a school. Other teachers in the district consider McCoin an invaluable resource and frequently visit her classroom to observe her teaching.
1997 University of Texas-Permian Basin, B.A.
