By Jen Samuel, Managing Editor
MANSFIELD — A Northern Burlington County Middle School agriscience teacher won a national award last week.
The Association for Career and Technical Education selected Robin McLean, of Westampton, as the national winner of its Teacher of the Year award.
Ms. McLean was recognized by the ACTE on Nov. 28 during an awards banquet in Atlanta. Each regional finalist was awarded $500, and Ms. McLean was awarded $1,000, according to ACTE.
”Cisco (the Teacher of the Year award sponsor) has been a longtime ACTE partner and supporter of career and technical education,” a release from ACTE stated. “ACTE is excited to collaborate with Cisco on an award that recognizes the important role teachers play in helping students navigate school and the world of work.”
”I am honored to be recognized as the Teacher of the Year. It’s also an honor to join the ranks of the outstanding agricultural educators on the stage,” Ms. McLean said upon accepting her award.
She started teaching at Northern Burlington County Middle School in 2007.
”The position opened, and it was ideal,” Ms. McLean told the Register-News on Tuesday.
Prior to accepting the position at Northern, she taught students in Salem County until she was hired by the New Jersey Department of Agriculture.
However, while at the DOA, for Ms. McLean, teaching remained a passion.
”I missed seeing students and the light in their eyes when they learn something,” she recalled.
”Any student or parent that meets Dr. McLean knows immediately just how passionate she is about her profession and her dedication to the students here at Northern,” said Superintendent James Sarruda of Northern Burlington County Regional School District. “She truly is a master teacher. She is nationally board certified, and she is a strong contributor to Northern’s comprehensive agriscience program.”
Superintendent Sarruda added, “We’re all excited for her. This is recognition she has earned.”
The principal of Northern Burlington Regional Middle School concurred.
”At Northern, we are very proud of Dr. McLean’s accomplishments,” said Principal Andrew Kearns on Dec. 4. “Her selection as the ACTE National Teacher of the Year is well deserved since she is such a dedicated educator who does so much for the students at the middle school.”
Ms. McLean teaches a variety of courses at Northern, including a seventh-grade nine-week elective and an eighth-grade 18-week connector class.
This fall, she introduced a curriculum for agricultural science education for eighth-graders. The introductory agriculture course is year-long and incorporates math, science and language arts.
”I think it’s exciting,” she said.
Ms. McLean said Northern is the first middle school in New Jersey to implement such a curriculum.
She said there are four agriculture teachers at Northern Burlington County High School and agricultural science education “trickled down from the high school” until it was decided to “give this a shot in the middle school.”
She applied for a grant to create the curriculum — which she was awarded in May.
Additionally, Ms. McLean is an advisor for Future Farmers of America at the middle school.
Ms. McLean has degrees from Cornell University and Virginia Tech. She said she recently defended her dissertation at Rowan University for her doctor of education in Educational Leadership.
For more information on the Teacher of the Year award, visit www.acteonline.org/award_teacher.

