.jpg;w=960)
The St. Vrain Valley Schools Education Foundation held its annual Celebration of Excellence on April 11 at Byron R. White Stadium at Folsom Field, in Boulder. The event recognizes outstanding educators from each St. Vrain Valley School District school, with one ultimately being named the district-wide Educator of the Year. This year, that honor went to Hannah McDonald, the entrepreneurship program manager at the Innovation Center of St. Vrain Valley Schools in Longmont.
In a video released by SVVSD on X this morning, McDonald said that she has always wanted to be a teacher. “My ultimate ‘why’ for teaching is helping students envision, build, and develop the skills to attain the future that they want for themselves,” she said in the video. “I am honored to be a resource for them, a support person for them, and [to help] them find those things and… do the things that they want to do.”
The Innovation Center is a facility where high school students from across SVVSD can take specialized classes, participate in internships, and work on real-world projects that supplement their education. The center focuses on fields like robotics, aerospace, biomedical science, entrepreneurship, and more.
“We had a student do a pitch for a mountain bike company — he built a mountain bike in my class and some of the three-dimensional software printed it out,” said Robert Work, an educator in the design program at the Innovation Center. “Then, he went into Hannah’s class and got the whole business pitch going. What an amazing thing for these kids to have someone like her.”
McDonald leads the Entrepreneurship Pathway at the center, a program that “equips students with the entrepreneurial mindset and skills to be successful in pursuing their passions through experiences that are transformative, relevant, and professionally validated.”
“With Hannah, she moves beyond the classroom and says, ‘Hey, this is a way for you to make this your career,’” said Kristen Brohm, the Innovation Center’s director of STEM programs. “She’s helping them with the networking piece, with durable skills, with those other elements that really take you to the next level. Everything Hannah does holds real-world value, and I appreciate the opportunity to be able to work with her.”
57 teachers were recognized this year at the Celebration of Excellence, which featured a mix of networking, video tributes, guest speakers, student performances, and storytelling to honor the educators’ work.
