BellXcel is pleased to announce that its 2018 Tiffany Cooper Gueye Educator of the Year is Angela Kennedy, Site Manager, at Louisiana 4-H-LSU AgCenter, in Angie.

Kennedy was chosen out of approximately 2,100 educators from across the country. She is also a faculty coordinator at Wesley Ray Elementary School. She received her award from BellXcel CEO Dr. Lauren Sanchez Gilbert on Wednesday at WRES, and the school received 100 books donated by Scholastic.

Last summer, BellXcel and Louisiana 4-H-LSU AgCenter combined resources and expertise to deliver an evidence-based summer learning program to 45 rising second, third, fourth, and fifth-grade students from Angie. Hosted at WRES, and offered at no cost to families, the program helped enrolled students, known as scholars, to strengthen the foundational reading and math skills, self-confidence, and resilience they need to advance to the next grade and excel in school and beyond.

Kennedy’s peers offered several comments on her worthiness for the award, in their testimonials. Excerpts of those testimonials included:

• “Angela has a can-do attitude and love for scholars that is evident in everything she does every day! She is a teacher in every sense of the word — with her scholars, with her families, and with her teammates.”
• “Angela took what she learned about growth mindset and used these principles during the summer and throughout the school year — telling scholars that they can do anything they put their minds to and sharing her own personal stories to illustrate this.”
• “For the first time ever, Wesley Ray went from a D-rated school to a C-rated school, Angela attributes that to the dedication of her staff and scholars.
• “Angela worked together with the local 4-H club — planning daily together to ensure success. She was dedicated to working the extra hours before, during and after the program.”

The Tiffany Cooper Gueye Educator of the Year award, in honor of BellXcel’s former CEO, recognizes an educator who best exemplifies BellXcel’s core values of Excellence, Learning, Respect, Courage and Collaboration. Kennedy’s colleagues spoke of her ability to live these important values throughout the summer program experience.

BellXcel is a national nonprofit leader in summer and afterschool programming. BellXcel’s modular solutions make it easier for school districts and other youth-serving organizations to design and deliver evidence-based out-of-school-time (OST) learning programs to prevent summer learning loss and eliminate the achievement gap.

In 2018, BellXcel-powered programs reached approximately 19,000 PK-8 scholars and 2,100 educators at 154 sites in 32 U.S. states. For more information, visit www.bellxcel.org.