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PPS’s Matthew Bacon-Brenes wins national teaching award
11/13/2018Matthew Bacon-Brenes, a teacher mentor and a leading advocate for dual language immersion in Portland Public Schools, has been awarded a Horace Mann Award for Teaching Excellence for 2019 from the NEA Foundation and Horace Mann.
Bacon-Brenes will receive the award, one of five given nationally, and a $10,000 prize at the NEA Foundation Gala in Washington, D.C., in February. The five winners are also finalists for the NEA Member Benefits Award that will reward a $25,000 prize at the gala.
Jeff Morgan of Horace Mann and John Larson, president of the Oregon Education Association, were on hand to present Bacon-Brenes with the award.
It was the second year in a row that Bacon-Brenes won a major teaching award. Last year, when he was a Japanese immersion teacher at Mt. Tabor Middle School, he won the Oregon Teacher of the Year Award from the Oregon Department of Education. Bacon-Brenes has been a leading proponent for PPS’s dual language immersion programs in which students learn subjects in both English and a second language.
“I certainly have put a lot of energy into the immersion setting and the specific setting in which I worked,” Bacon-Brenes said. “I spent a lot of years trying to figure out how you make this dual language immersion thing work, and deliver not just the language, but the content.”
Bacon-Brenes is in his 16th year at PPS. He taught for 29 years, starting with 10 years at Gladstone High School, followed by three years teaching in Japan. This year, he has moved into the PPS district office as a teacher mentor, using his experience to help guide young educators.
“I moved out of the classroom, which is kind of ironic since this is an award for excellence in teaching,” he said. “I'm absolutely loving it. It's a way to take my experience in the classroom and assist others that are entering the profession”
The NEA Foundation is a charity founded by educators to improve public education. Horace Mann is a financial services company that provides educators with insurance and retirement solutions.
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