At Tri-Community Elementary School in Bressler-Steelton, Pennsylvania, kindergarten teacher Lynn Carney launches young children on their lifelong educational journeys as motivated learners and grade-level readers. Teaching in a self-contained classroom with students from diverse backgrounds, including many English Language Learners (ELLs), Carney recognizes every student's potential and provides lessons with clear goals, measurable objectives, student-centered learning activities and meaningful assessments. She uses student data to inform instruction, adjusting her lesson plans and strategies to meet the needs of all students. Her effective instructional methods—including Response to Intervention (RTI), Learning-Focused School strategies and an Everyday Math curriculum—have helped her students score consistently at a high level of proficiency on daily assignments, quizzes, assessments, standardized tests and the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA). In 2006-07, 98 percent of her students were reading at or above grade level by the end of the year, including many from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Carney's classroom has served as a model demonstration class for effective teaching practices within an RTI framework, and many teachers and administrators from across the Commonwealth have visited her classroom to observe. She has presented at district Parent Advisory Committee meetings and coordinated "Artist-in-Residency" programs. Carney was featured in Teaching Matters, a DVD commissioned by the Pennsylvania Secretary of Education that includes videos of effective teaching practices in action.
1990 Millersville University of Pennsylvania, B.S.
