Ann Buckley Named Granby Teacher of the Year

Ann Buckley was named Granby’s 2013 Teacher of the Year during the school system’s end of the year closing ceremonies. As she made her way to the auditorium stage to accept the honor, she was met by her husband, her son and her parents as well as a standing ovation from her colleagues, according to a release from the district.

It was just a matter of time until she was given the honor.

Buckley’s peers have called her caring, innovative and tenacious and have said that she does whatever it takes to ensure her students’ success.

“…her students, their parents, and her Granby Memorial Middle School colleagues have thought the world of her and her work during the past seven years,” the release says. 

Buckley, a seventh-grade life sciences teacher, came to Granby in 2006, after teaching in Farmington and Watkinson School in West Hartford.

“Visit my classroom, and you might find it transformed into a cell, complete with a nucleus, cell membrane, and mitochondria. Here, students acting as blood cells, rotate from organelle to organelle and act out how a cell works,” she said, describing her approach.

Buckley’s care for her students and community extend past science curriculum and the classroom, however. She provides extracurricular activities like Angel Horses and Lego League programs, participates in Hunger Walk and the Community Thanksgiving Dinner and volunteers with her son’s PTO and her church.

Buckley will be honored at the Annual State Teacher of the Year Recognition Ceremony at the Bushnell Auditorium in Hartford in November and will represent Granby in the statewide Teacher of the Year competition.