Outstanding Jr. High Teacher of the Year

This years Junior High Teacher of the Year is Kristine Kwant from Peoria Unified School District. Kristine teaches the Jr. High Career Exploration Class. Kristine is an innovative and accomplish Jr. High Teacher at Zuni Hills Elementary. She has also served as a TLC cohort leader, co-program manager and program leader during various times of her tenure. Mrs. Kwant has served as an advisor at Zuni Hills CTSO both for Skills USA and FBLA supervised work-based learning opportunities. Kristine has implemented the TLC Curriculum including classroom instruction and hands-on activities in all 16 clusters, encouraged student learning of professional skills by implementing weekly self-reflection requirements and worked with staff on and off her campus to grow the program she is so passionate about.

ACTEAZ is proud to say that she has presented breakout sessions at the ACTE Summer Conference sharing her expertise with statewide participants.
Kris’s was on a four-member team that spent the summer of 2017 learning code.org to implement in the TLC Curriculum. She was then able to return to the TLC Team and create the curriculum now used all district 7th graders for exploring coding skills.

Colleagues recognize Kris also for another one of her strongest areas which is leadership development helping students to become better people and citizens to develop their interests and leadership skills.
She is the Zuni Hills high school transition coordinator requiring partnership with the guidance team to ensure all 8th grade students are properly registered for their core and elective classes that align to their identified career pathways.