Date:  April 24, 2001
Contact: Irene Cromer
(703) 791-8720

 Karen Mirkovich, who teaches first grade at Marshall Elementary School, has been selected as Prince William County’s Teacher of the Year.  Sally M. Graham Martin, a business education teacher at Brentsville District Middle/High School, was a finalist for the award.  The Prince William County School Board will present plaques to Mirkovich and Martin at the School Board meeting on Wednesday, April 25.

Mirkovich was selected from among sixteen nominees by a panel of teachers, parents, school division classified personnel and administrators.  Mirkovich also will be the school division’s nominee for the 2002 Virginia Teacher of the Year.  She is the recipient of the Washington Post’s Agnes Meyer Outstanding Teacher Award for 2001.

Karen Mirkovich

 In 1999, Karen Mirkovich became one of the first five Prince William County teachers to achieve National Board Certification.  She has since accepted an invitation to become a trained National Board assessor, a position that allows her to mentor current National Board candidates.   A former member of the school division’s Instructional Support Team, Mirkovich was an active participant in the development and implementation of an elementary school science program, the science lead teacher program, and the elementary science coordinator handbook. “Mrs. Mirkovich is, without exception, the most dedicated individual I have ever known.”  says a curriculum supervisor.

 At Marshall, she was instrumental in establishing “Prime Time Reading Night,” which brings several hundred parents and students together for an evening of reading.  She also 
sponsors an author’s night, where every child reads aloud from his own book.  
A graduate of the University of Portland, Oregon, with a Bachelor of Music Education, Mirkovich earned a Master’s of Science degree in curriculum design and instruction from the University of Southern California.  She earned National Board Certification as an Early Childhood Generalist in 1999.

Sally M. Graham Martin

“Sally Martin creates lessons with purpose and coordinates meaningful co-curricular projects for her students,” her nominators say.  In her desktop publishing/multimedia presentations class, Martin requires students to create business cards and brochures for actual businesses.  Martin was selected as Virginia’s 2000 Future Business Leaders of America Advisor of the Year.  In 1999, she was named the Virginia Business Education Association Great Ideas 
Winner for the Furbie Project she designed and implemented in her classroom using the Internet. 

According to her nominators, seeing a young person discover his or her potential is Sally Martin’s greatest reward as a teacher.  Taryn Kiesnowski, a former student who is now a business teacher at Brentsville, says, “Mrs. Martin created a spark that ran inside me like wildfire….I knew then that I wanted to teach high school business students all of the things that I had learned from Mrs. Martin.”

 A graduate of Longwood College in Farmville, Virginia, with a Bachelor of Science in business education, Martin earned a Master’s of Education in education with an emphasis in social foundations from the University of Virginia.

 Other nominees for the award, their curriculum area or grade, and their schools included: Laura Altholz, physical education, Featherstone and Triangle elementary schools; James Dean Bish, United States and Virginia history and twentieth century history, Woodbridge High School; Robin L. Blaemire, speech and language pathologist, Kerrydale Elementary School; Maureen Ellis, pre-IB world studies 9, IB anthropology 11-12, Stonewall Jackson High School; Althena Harris, fifth grade, Nokesville Elementary School; and Mary Devlin Hayden, seventh grade language arts, Graham Park Middle School.

Also, Jean C. Lusardi, chemistry, Woodbridge High School; Donald C. Maeyer, electronic technology, electronics II, Woodbridge High School; Betsey Nalevanko, eighth grade language arts and reading/regular education and inclusion special education, Beville Middle School; Elizabeth Pitts, Latin, Forest Park High School; Andrea Sparks-Brown, biology, Woodbridge High School; Julie J. Steelman, first grade, West Gate Elementary School; Donna Stofko, third grade, Rockledge Elementary School; and Michelle P. Wentzel, ED self-contained resource, Stonewall Jackson High School.