All NCSS awards and grants information can be found here. 


Elementary Teacher of the Year 

Teresa Roets
Thornell Road Elementary School 
Pittsford, NY 

Teresa Roets is a kindergarten teacher in the Pittsford Central School District, New York, known for her dedication,
compassion, and innovative teaching methods. Her teaching philosophy centers on nurturing the holistic development of each child and instilling a sense of citizenship and civic responsibility. Ms. Roets is recognized as a leader in her school district and the broader New York State Social Studies community. She has also co-led DEI initiatives in her district and inquiry projects at the state level. Teresa engages with colleagues in her district and across the state around elementary topics. She actively shares her expertise by serving on the New York State Council for the Social Studies and RACSS, presents at the Annual Convention, and contributes to elementary webinars.

Middle Level Teacher of the Year

CherylAnne Amendola
Montclair Kimberley Academy
Montclair, NJ

CherylAnne Amendola has been teaching American and World History for the last 18 years. She was named 2017 New Jersey History Teacher of the Year by the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History and is an ambassador for the New York Historical Society’s Women and the American Story program. She is co-president of the New Jersey Council for History Education and a councilor-at-large for the New Jersey Council for the Social Studies. She also serves as vice chair of the National Council of the Social Studies Membership Committee. CherylAnne published her first book in November 2019 entitled On the Backs of the Enslaved and is the host of the "Teaching History Her Way" podcast.

Secondary Teacher of the Year

Andrew Budris
Bellport High School
Brookhaven, NY

Andrew Budris is an educator dedicated to improving his own content and pedagogical knowledge, integrating innovative problem-based teaching in his classroom, and sharing his experience with teachers both in his home district and from across the state. Andrew has been teaching, and leading, at Bellport High School for twenty-five years. In that time he has worked with his colleagues to ensure that all students are able to participate in activities that build their critical thinking and civic participation skills. His dedication to including all students extended into his work as a leader for Bellport High School in its role as a pilot program of the Civic Readiness Seal. He worked to develop projects so that seniors in AP, general education, ENL, and self-contained classrooms could all have the chance to become stronger citizens. A total of 95% of the students participated in the Capstone Project. Andrew is currently working toward earning his doctoral degree in Learning and Teaching from Hofstra University. Andrew is the 2023 Outstanding Social Studies Classroom Teacher - High School Award winner for the New York State Council for the Social Studies.



Grant for the Enhancement of Geographic Literacy

'Get Lit with Geo-Literacy: Virginia Geographic Alliance GeoExplorer Institute”
Lillian Brown, Portsmouth Public Schools, Portsmouth, VA
Tiya Shaw, Spotsylvania County Public Schools, Fredericksburg, VA


“Get Lit with Geo-Literacy: Virginia Geographic Alliance GeoExplorer Institute” as presented by Lillian Brown and Tiya Shaw, is a professional learning opportunity that seeks to provide effective, research-based, and differentiated cross-curricular mapping activities that align with school improvement goals. Their proposal seeks to create a professional learning community using the GeoExplorer curriculum content. The institute is an opportunity for teachers and students to engage their understanding and application of civics, history, and geography through place-based learning, floor maps, and digital mapping tools. The institute will partner with the Virginia Geographic Alliance, New American History, Spotsylvania County Public Schools, and Portsmouth City Public Schools to provide multiple professional developments for state-wide use. The institute will achieve three main goals: (1) create and implement multiple statewide teacher institutes to provide teachers with mapping, history, and civics skills across content areas through GeoLit Labs, (2) conduct a field experience with local museums, and (3) host a summer camp for students providing them with a learning experience that exposes them to local museums, floor maps, and the digital atlas encompassing cross-curricular, inquiry-based activities.

NCSS Exemplary Research Award

“Feeling Fear as Power and Oppression: An Examination of Black and White Fear in Virginia’s U.S. History Standards and Curriculum Framework”
Dr. Brittany Jones
University of Buffalo
Buffalo, NY

Dr. Brittany Jones is selected as the recipient of the NCSS Exemplary Research Award for her article, “Feeling Fear as Power and Oppression: An Examination of Black and White Fear in Virginia’s U.S. History Standards and Curriculum Framework,” published in 2022 in Theory and Research in Social Education. The study makes a deeply compelling argument for a full emotional representation of Black people in the Virginia standards.The research conception, model, design, procedure, and analysis address: How do the standards discuss fear in relation to Black experiences within Virginia’s How U.S. History & Social Science Standards of Learning and Curriculum Framework? and How do the standards discuss fear in relation to white experiences within Virginia’s U.S. History & Social Science Standards of Learning and Curriculum Framework?



Larry Metcalf Exemplary Dissertation Award

”Looking Back to the Future: Young Women Recall and Re-envision High School History Class”
Dr. Joanna Batt
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX

Dr. Joanna Batt’s dissertation, “Looking Back to the Future: Young Women Recall and Re-envision High School History Class,” tells the story of a group of women who recall and reimagine their high school history education. It is a qualitative case study seeking to understand how the history curriculum can affect the students who receive it. Its findings cover under-representation and trauma and implore social studies teaching and research to pay attention to the student-recalled pasts of its content and pedagogy, so it can move towards a more equitable and inclusive future as a field. The study asks how young women of Color and LGBTQ2IA+-identifying women remember history class years after the fact, including how they saw— or did not see—themselves in the 9-12 social studies content they learned in a PWI (predominately white institution) high school.
 

Jean Dresden Grambs Distinguished Career Research Award

Dr. Keith Barton
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN

Dr. Keith C. Barton is one of the most prominent scholars in the field of social studies education. His scholarship has been widely influential in state, national, and global contexts in the areas of curriculum, assessment, teacher education, and teaching and learning. His work has set the standard for other researchers in history and social studies education. Dr. Barton is one of the most widely published scholars in our field, with over 70 articles and book chapters, and five books, spanning almost 30 years, influencing thousands of teachers, teacher educators, and researchers.
Dr. Barton’s career has been dedicated to research and teaching on how children and adolescents understand history, in cross-national studies of students’ historical learning, and on curriculum theory in history/social studies education. In recent years, he has extended his scholarship to international human rights and global civic education.
In the NCSS community, Dr. Barton chaired the College and University Faculty Assembly (CUFA), an NCSS Associated Group, and the NCSS Research Committee. He has held several positions for Division C of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). He has served on more than ten editorial boards, including the boards for the American Educational Research Journal, Theory and Research in Social Education, and the International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching, and Research. He has served as a reviewer for numerous journals and as an external reviewer for promotions at many universities; an external dissertation reviewer for universities worldwide; mentored numerous doctoral students at Indiana University and colleagues at universities worldwide.