People
Students Find Teacher's 'Mr. Right'

Oregon's Clair Wiles didn't have much time for a social life, so her cupid-playing students took it upon themselves to give her one.

During one study hall, Wiles recalls, several students were using the Internet to research term papers. "I was preparing lesson plans, so I was kind of in a fog," she says. When she got to the computer to see what they were doing, the students had just pushed the "send" button, launching information about her to the personals section of America Online.

"I was horrified," says the third-year global studies teacher and Navy veteran, "but I figured it was all in fun and nothing would come out of it."

The next day, Wiles received 40 E-mail messages from potential suitors. "I told the students that they were responsible for going through them," she says. After one disastrous date, she told the students no more. Then she read an E-mail from Kevin Wiles.

"He e-mailed a picture of himself with his two dogs, said he liked country music and worked in Eugene," she says. "I figured it was worth a shot."

After eight months of dating--including time spent chaperoning dances and school events together--Kevin proposed. On May 12, they wed on the stage of the high school's auditorium, with 150 guests looking on. Her student matchmakers also performed a one-act play about the couple's courtship before they said their vows.

"There was no way we could get married without inviting the students," she says. "It was an incredibly memorable experience."

Offering Relief in New York City

When Rhode Island's Carol Anderhaggen retired in 1999 after 28 years as a library media specialist, she knew she wasn't ready to sit at home. So she took her love of technology to the Red Cross--where she's been volunteering as a disaster computer operator.

She's worked hurricanes, fires, and plane crashes, but nothing compares to her assignment that began September 12 in New York City.

"It's the largest disaster response that Red Cross has ever been involved with," says Anderhaggen, who is one of nine computer operators overseeing the computer programs that are being used by the more than 1,500 Red Cross volunteers and employees to track everything from transportation to staffing to communications.

"The days are long and it can be hard emotionally," says Anderhaggen, ``but I'm doing something valuable."

Protecting Our Retirements

Nebraska's John Jensen and Connecticut's Clare Barnett are safeguarding retirement funds for more than 13 million education and Association employees across the country. They are the first teachers and NEA members to serve as president and president-elect, respectively, of the National Council on Teacher Retirement (NCTR).

It's been over three decades since the NCTR board--which oversees pension funds worth more than $1.3 trillion--has had a president, much less two, from the teacher ranks.

"It's our goal to form a coalition this year to educate all school and Association employees about pension and retirement issues," says Jensen, a science research teacher at Omaha South High School who stepped in as the temporary NCTR president this fall.

"There are very real threats against our pension plans, which are often the largest assets we have as educators," says Barnett, a social studies coordinator at Danbury High School who was elected to begin her presidential term in 2005.

Formula for Fulfillment

Henry Brown knows what it's like to be "at-risk."

"I was an angry child who could pacify my feelings only by being disruptive in school," says Brown, a math and personal development teacher at Hallandale Adult Alternative High School in Hallandale Beach. "But my seventh grade teacher saved me. I would probably be dead or in jail if not for her."

Brown didn't set out to be a teacher. "I was getting my business degree from Albany State University in Georgia when I started a tutoring program for at-risk kids in the neighborhood," he says. "I knew then that it didn't matter what the pay was, it mattered that I was fulfilled."

For nine years, Brown has been instrumental in developing unique hands-on learning solutions at Hallandale to engage and excite his students about learning. In just one year, his students raised their standardized math test scores by 40 percent.

"My students need to equate what they are learning to the real world," says the USA Today-honored teacher. "So I bring in tires to teach them about the area of a circle, or use intensive tasks like plotting gardens and designing sheds to reinforce basic math skills."

He's also set up a mentorship program for young boys to "help them make the transition from boyhood to manhood," he says. "A lot of them don't have fathers in their lives and are dealing with personal hurt that can easily turn into rage if it's not addressed."

'Have Art, Will Travel'

Idaho's Jennifer Williams, isn't just a high school art teacher. She's on a mission to bring art into the lives of as many children as possible.

For 27 years, Williams, a 30-year veteran at Nampa's Skyview High School, has been doing "Project Van Go," a free-to-schools program she created that brings art--including mask-making, murals, weaving, pottery--to students and parents in rural communities across Idaho and Nevada.

"I go to a lot of one- and two-room schools that have fewer than ten children," she says. "Many kids are from families who have little access to art supplies or art projects."

Williams also brings some of her own students with her as assistants to "expose them to life outside of our community,'' she says. Williams makes about a dozen trips a year.

Before 1993, Williams funded all of the costs of the program, including substitute pay, herself. Since then, she's received several large grants to sustain the program, including a $27,000 Unsung Hero award from the Northern Life Insurance Company.