BCPS Staffers, Teachers Recognized For Professional Achievements

BALTIMORE COUNTY, MD — Several educators and staffers with Baltimore County Public Schools have been recognized for their hard work. The Chesapeake Chapter of the National School Public Relations Association presented six awards including an award of excellence to Baltimore County Public Schools for the quality of its communications efforts. Contest entries were created during the 2019-2020 school year and were judged by an external panel.

Six Baltimore County Public Schools teachers and one principal have been recognized with district awards from the BCPS office of visual arts through the Maryland Art Education Association. In addition, two BCPS visual arts teachers have been nominated for state recognition.

• Marta Biddinger, Deer Park Elementary School
• Molly Schappel, Perry Hall Middle School
• Ginger Cain, Kenwood High School

• Natovian McLeod, Colgate Elementary School
• Christina Snyder, General John Stricker Middle School
• Ariana Mygatt, Parkville High School

BCPS Administrator of the Year:
Dwight (Jerry) Easterly, Battle Monument School

Two other BCPS teachers— Taylor Boren of Logan Elementary School and Lindsay Miller of Towson High School – have been nominated by the visual arts office for state awards.

CAP status earned

Four Baltimore County Public Schools employees earned Certified Administrative Professional status from the International Association of Administrative Professionals. As of November 2020, only 5,501 administrative professionals among the IAAP membership are actively certified CAP designees.

The newly certified BCPS employees are:

• Gepsie Cox, CAP, executive administrative assistant to the chief academic officer
• Pierre François, CAP, executive administrative assistant to the chief administrative and operations officer
• Karen Horlacher, CAP, administrative assistant to the executive director of information technology
• Winopa Mbakop, CAP, administrative secretary III to the director of enterprise applications

Global leadership award

Jeanne Imbriale, director of the Baltimore County Public Schools’ office of enterprise applications, has earned an IMS Global 2020 Leadership Award. Only six awards were presented recently in this category by the international association during the IMS Global Learning Impact Leadership Institute.

According to IMS, awards are presented to honor “outstanding educational technology leaders who have gone above and beyond displaying creativity, passion, vision for creating K-12 digital ecosystems. These individuals are dedicated educational technology professionals that make significant contributions to developing the future of education by collaborating on interoperability standards and major initiatives that improve the digital teaching and learning ecosystem.”

An educator for more than 25 years, Imbriale has worked for BCPS for 15 years. As director of enterprise applications, she leads the development of system solutions for all 175 schools, centers and programs, provides support and quality assurance, supervises the capture of student data and reporting, manages the school system’s digital ecosystem, develops web strategies to meet the needs of students and manages the establishment of internal data governance structures.

AP teacher represents Maryland at Congress

Amanda Lattimore, a computer science resource teacher with the Baltimore County Public Schools’ office of career and technical education, participated in the College Board Virtual Federal AP (Advanced Placement) Week. A letter from the College Board invited “approximately 20 of the most engaged and exceptional AP teachers from across the country" to meet virtually with members of Congress to advocate for the AP program. The letter continued that “this elite cadre of AP Advocates will give voice to the over 160,000 AP teachers across the nation."

During the week, Lattimore represented Maryland and met with staff from Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen’s office to explain the importance of promoting AP courses, helping students pay for the exams, and providing professional development for new AP teachers. She has worked for BCPS for 19 years since earning her bachelor’s degree.