Presently, Yvonne “Jackie” Griffin is a Realtor with Keller Williams Realty, Columbia, NE, Columbia, SC. She continues to hone her teaching skills by offering free courses such as Money Management, Financial Freedom & Home Ownership 101 to future homeowners.
In teacher Yvonne Dean-Griffin's family and consumer science classroom at Hartford Public High School in Hartford, students learned by doing. They developed banking skills by opening and maintaining savings accounts; handled family finances by becoming "families" and managing simulated budgets; and experience the magnitude of pregnancy and child care with a 34-pound "empathy" belly and a whining "Baby Think About It." She received a Christa McAuliffe Fellowship for "Your Heart's Delight," an integrated curriculum in which students researched the role DNA & cultural inheritances, lifestyles, dietary habits, poverty and stress play in diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. Mrs. Griffin developed the first "Teacher Cadet Academy" program in the state of Connecticut, designed to train, inspire, and encourage high school students, who have displayed an interest in teaching, to assume leadership roles in education, while earning college credit from Eastern CT State University or UCONN. At the time of her retirement, she had a 92% success rate of students graduating and pursuing a teaching career, including Tamika Knight, who is also a Milken Educator!
Being a Milken recipient is an honor of which I am extremely proud. It also means setting higher goals and expectations for me and my students. I truly want my students to understand the quote "To whom much is given, much is required". Since receiving the award I have served as President of Greater New England Alliance of Black School Educators, and NE Affiliate Representative and Board member of the National Alliance of Black School Educators.
1971 Hampton University, B.A.
