Chancellor Teacher's Award Trip Was 'Unforgettable'

Math teacher Kimberly Riddle said she is excited to return to the classroom this year so she can share with her colleagues all of the new resources that she learned about during her three-day stay in the nation's capital .

"I don’t even know if I have words to describe everything that happened," Riddle said during an interview Tuesday. "Incredible and unforgettable—I think I would use those two words."

Riddle's mother, Pat Riddle, who retired from the Spotsylvania County school system after 35 years, attended the events with her daughter.

"She's got all of the pictures right now," Riddle joked.

Riddle said President Obama was in Colorado because of the wildfires, so she didn't get to meet him or his wife. But Riddle and a group of other award winners met with Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, who teaches English at Northern Virginia Community College.

"They are pretty funny people," she said. "They talked about the Secret Service being upset when Dr. Biden comes along with her big black bag of papers that she has to grade. It’s a big bag and there's a lot of paper and it's heavy," she said.

The Bidens also talked about how President Obama is trying to convince Congress to make a $5 billion investment in what he calls "Project Respect," a program that would challenge states and school districts to work with teachers, unions, colleges of education and other education stakeholders to reform the teaching profession.

Riddle said the biggest gift of the three-day event was learning about all of the resources that are available to teachers. For example, on one of the three days Riddle said she met with officials from the National Science Foundation, who told the group about donorschoose.org, which is an online charity that connects people to classrooms in need.

"They are getting a lot of requests from English teachers, but they are hardly getting any science or math requests," she said. "They want to give money to science and math."

Riddle said the National Science Foundation has a master teacher fellowship and a career-switching program that helps fund some of the educational costs if people want to switch careers to become a teacher. She also met with U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman R-1, who discussed positive and negative trends with the educational system in Virginia, and with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

"I've got some ideas and I am ready to go," she said about returning to the classroom in August.

As an award winner, Riddle also won $10,000. She said she will use it to pay room and board for her daughter's first year at University of Virginia.

In a separate trip, Riddle will be going to Langley Research Center in Hampton Roads to meet with NASA officials from July 30-Aug. 10.

"They are going to help us write interactive hands-on lesson plans for the classroom to help make math and science connections," she said. "I think that is one thing we don’t do well as teachers is to help make those connections."