Katie Klaus, a social studies teacher at Woodland High School, was named Monday as Washington’s James Madison Fellowship Award recipient for 2016, giving her $24,000 to put toward graduate studies and a trip to Washington, D.C., for a monthlong summer institute.
The James Madison Foundation annually picks one fellow from among each state’s secondary school teachers of American history and government. Applicants are reviewed on their academic history, extracurricular activities and potential to be successful in a graduate degree program. The teachers must also submit a constitutional essay and letters of recommendation. Klaus is currently looking at schools and intends to pursue her Master of Arts degree in American history and government.
“I wanted to become a teacher to help make a positive difference in the lives of students,” she said in a news release. “Most people can look back at their high school career and identify a teacher who really inspired or influenced them, and I want to be that type of teacher.”
Klaus will attend the summer institute at Georgetown University. “The Foundations of American Constitutionalism” will include visits to sites associated with the Constitution of the United States in and around Washington, D.C. She will also have a private meeting with a sitting Supreme Court justice.
She’s the second teacher from Woodland to earn the fellowship, after Sharon Conditt was selected by the James Madison Foundation in 2009.
