Vermont’s Teacher of the Year Goes Beyond the Basics

Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver doesn’t typically teach in costume. But on Halloween morning, she arrived at Winooski High School dressed in overalls, a stuffed-animal pig sticking out of her pocket and a red bandana tied jauntily around her neck — her take on the farm girl at the center of the children’s classic Charlotte’s Web.

Just as she goes all-in when tackling difficult subjects with her students, she had gone all-in on Halloween. Later that day she would parade across the auditorium stage as part of a school-wide costume contest. That night, she’d wear the outfit to accompany her own two kids trick-or-treating in Moretown.

But first on the day’s agenda for Vermont’s newly named Teacher of the Year was Global Explorations, a history class of her own design. Ms. Caitlin, as her students call her, greeted her 16 pupils with a bright smile and a cheerful “Good morning,” then got down to business.

The day’s lesson centered on mining for cobalt — a material used in batteries that power cellphones and electric cars — and how the under-regulated industry in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has led to the depletion of the country’s natural resources and the exploitation of child laborers. It was a lesson especially meaningful to several of the students — including one from the Congo — whose families arrived in Winooski from refugee camps in Africa and Asia.

Students circulated among three tables, reading a different article about the cobalt issue at each one. The tightly planned lesson — filled with opportunities to discuss, write and read — left little room for students to drift off task. And it showcased the skillful teaching that earned MacLeod-Bluver the 2025 Teacher of the Year award. The Massachusetts native, 35, has dedicated her career to educating students from a diversity of backgrounds in a way that examines and celebrates their cultures — while also helping them excel academically.

MacLeod-Bluver’s work has earned her attention and praise at the local and state level. Her “ability to inspire, challenge, and uplift her students makes her an exceptional educator and a true leader in the field,” interim Education Secretary Zoie Saunders said in a statement after MacLeod-Bluver won teacher of the year. Winooski principal Jean Berthiaume described MacLeod-Bluver as a “remarkable” educator and praised her “genuine care for students, coupled with her profound knowledge of best practices and the critical importance of literacy.”

Becoming a teacher wasn’t something MacLeod-Bluver considered until one summer during college, when she worked with underserved teens in Boston. After graduating from Wesleyan University, she enrolled in the Boston Teacher Residency, an AmeriCorps-funded teacher prep program, which placed her in a classroom and paid for her to attend grad school at the same time. She ultimately landed a teaching gig at the Boston International Newcomers Academy, a high school exclusively for immigrant English learners.

The job gave her the opportunity to “really [affirm] students’ brilliance and genius,” she said. “Yes, they are still developing English. That doesn’t mean they are any less smart. They still have so much to offer the world.” She loved figuring out ways to structure classes that would allow students to express themselves and see themselves as part of the wider community.

MacLeod-Bluver later spent a year teaching in Alaska before she and her husband settled in Vermont in 2019 to be closer to family. She applied to just one school district, Winooski, because she was attracted to teaching its immigrant students. About one-third of the district’s students are multilingual learners. Most of them arrived in Vermont as refugees; 74 percent live in poverty.

Though hired as a reading specialist, MacLeod-Bluver quickly moved into the classroom as a history and English teacher. She still coaches colleagues on ways to provide effective reading instruction and teaches a class on curriculum and instruction to University of Vermont undergrads.

Despite her busy schedule, MacLeod-Bluver found time to apply for the Teacher of the Year award, which required her to write several essays and give a speech to the State Board of Education.

In the speech, she talked about the role of teachers as “nurturers of the American dream.” Some of her students come from families that have been in Vermont for generations, she said, while many others are recent arrivals from the Congo, Somalia, Bhutan and Myanmar.

“It is my job to help students develop criticality to make sense of this world, navigate this world, and ultimately create a better, more inclusive, more just world,” she said. “What is the American dream if not creating spaces for everyone to succeed?”

One benefit of Winooski is its small size, MacLeod-Bluver said. With fewer than 200 students in the high school, she’s able to really get to know kids. Often, she has them in class several years in a row. She gives out her cellphone number in case they need help after hours. She runs an afterschool boot camp on college-essay writing and advises a social-justice club and literary magazine. And she and several other teachers recently started a club that gets students into the outdoors. Some of her students find her teaching so effective that they reach out for help with college assignments after they graduate.

A few years ago, MacLeod-Bluver designed two new classes that acknowledge the background of Winooski students. Global Explorations delves into the histories of countries — including the Congo, Somalia and Bhutan — where many students’ families are from. She invites adults from those countries to speak to the class and has students interview family members.

In another course, Challenging Systems of Oppression, students learn about social and racial injustice. They write and deliver speeches about something they think is unjust in the world today — say, mass incarceration or the rise in hate crimes against Asian people. Whatever topic she’s teaching, MacLeod-Bluver said, she always encourages students to back up their assertions with evidence and reinforces the importance of evaluating sources of information.

She’s well aware that in many places around the country, the work she does would be challenged. She sees Vermont as a “model for what true inclusive, culturally responsive teaching looks like,” a place where students’ differences are celebrated.

“When I’ve shared some of this work outside of Vermont, teachers say, ‘We could never do that,'” she said.

But MacLeod-Bluver thinks those who push educators to focus solely on reading, writing and arithmetic are missing a big piece of what teaching is all about.

“I don’t think you can just teach the basics … without caring for the whole child and for their whole being,” she said.

Just 12 days after Halloween, MacLeod-Bluver led her American literature class through a discussion about book banning. Not much time had passed since her lesson on cobalt mining, but the world felt distinctly different. The country had reelected former president Donald Trump, a politician who routinely disparaged immigrants on the campaign trail and vowed to end “wokeness” in American schools.

In a previous class, students had read two articles about parents in North Carolina who had sued a school over a lesson about the young-adult book The Poet X, arguing that it was an assault on their Christian beliefs. The Winooski students had also just read the novel, by Elizabeth Acevedo, in which the teenage protagonist struggles with what she sees as the patriarchal aspects of the Catholic church.

Students had circled up for a discussion when suddenly they were interrupted by Winooski superintendent Wilmer Chavarria. He walked in and announced that a parent had complained about The Poet X. Until the issue could be resolved, he said, he would be confiscating all copies. Then he did so, leaving the classroom with several bins of books. Students’ eyes went wide with incredulity.

A few minutes later, MacLeod-Bluver broke into a smile. She had arranged Chavarria’s visit, she told the class, to get the students thinking about how they would react to a book ban in their own school. A spirited discussion ensued. Several students said parents should have a say in what their child reads but not a whole class of students.

“Parents aren’t in this generation and don’t know what kids are going through,” one girl said.

Soon, students were back at their seats writing a literary analysis of The Poet X. MacLeod-Bluver instructed them to write a thesis statement, then go back to the book to gather evidence to support it.

“Strong planning is going to create strong writing,” she told students.

As they worked, she circulated from table to table, checking in with each writer. Making her way around the room, she passed bookshelves filled with novels organized in unconventional categories, such as “Quick and Good,” “Strong Female Leads” and “Real Talk.”

On one shelf were bound anthologies of students’ writing from previous years. One teen born in a refugee camp in Thailand had written of his mom, who worked two jobs to support their family and still found time to cook big Sunday meals. Another told of trips to a food bank in New Mexico. There were narratives about harvesting sugarcane in Tanzania, going to a grandparent’s funeral and getting caught in a gas explosion in a Nepali village.

The publications served as compelling evidence that each student who enters Ms. Caitlin’s classroom has a unique and complicated story. It’s her job to teach them all.

This article appears in Nov 20-26, 2024.

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