Naugatuck High School Teacher Receives National Honor

NAUGATUCK, CT — Naugatuck High School teacher Teresa Lewis was honored by the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation of Alexandria, VA, as one of 53 teachers awarded a James Madison Fellowship for 2016. To mark the honor, state officials recognized Lewis at a ceremony on Wednesday, October 26 at A.I. Prince Technical High School in Hartford, school officials said in a news release.

This is Lewis’s third year at NHS teaching Civics and AP U.S. History. She is the only teacher in the State of Connecticut to receive the honor this year.

“This fellowship highlights Teresa’s hard work and commitment to education and her enthusiasm to the subject,” said Naugatuck Superintendent Sharon Locke in a prepared statement. “Attaining this honor is quite a feat, and we are so proud of Teresa.”

The fellowship, in its twenty-fifth annual competition, provides aspiring and experienced secondary school teachers of American history, American government and social studies with the opportunity to study the Constitution and the founding of American Government at Georgetown University for the summer of 2017, along with a $24,000 scholarship to pay for graduate school.

About the fellowship: Named in honor of the fourth president of the United States and acknowledged "Father of the Constitution and Bill of Rights," a James Madison Fellowship funds up to $24,000 of each Fellow’s course of study towards a master’s degree. That program must include a concentration of courses on the history and principles of the United States Constitution.

The 53 James Madison Fellows were selected in competition with applicants from each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the nation’s island and trust territories. The fellowships are funded by income from a trust fund in the Treasury of the United States and from additional private gifts, corporate contributions, and foundation grants.

Recipients are required to teach American history or social studies in a secondary school for at least one year for each year of fellowship support. The award is intended to recognize promising and distinguished teachers, to strengthen their knowledge of the origins and development of American constitutional government, and thus to expose the nation’s secondary school students to accurate knowledge of the nation’s constitutional heritage.

Founded by an Act of Congress in 1986, the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation is an independent agency of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Additional information may be found at www.jamesmadison.gov.