St. Cloud’s Paige Janorschke Is A Finalist For Teacher Of The Year

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- Two of the 11 finalists for Minnesota's Teacher of the Year work in the St. Cloud Area School District.

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Paige Janorschke is a 4th-grade teacher at Lincoln Elementary. She started teaching in 2021 after graduating from St. Cloud State University and has been at Lincoln all five years of her career.

It's been the best five years of my life.  I'm very lucky to have landed at Lincoln; the community is so strong.  Between the staff, all of the teachers, the students, and the parent relationships, it's beautiful, honestly.

She says she was surprised to be nominated, and it took a while to find out who nominated her.

So I found out that I was not only nominated by my co-workers, but my sister nominated me, my students also nominated me, and the parents of my previous students from last year. Honestly, it's been a whirlwind.

The Minnesota Teacher of the Year selection panel will meet on May 2nd to conduct individual interviews with each of the 11 finalists. This year's honoree will be announced at a banquet at the St. Paul RiverCentre on May 3rd.

Education Minnesota organizes the program each year. They started with 128 candidates earlier in the school year.

Another St. Cloud finalist is Apollo's Devon Bowker. We'll be hearing from him later.