Austin teacher named winner of 2023-2024 STEM Forward Outstanding Educator Award

Congratulations to Austin’s Joee Winter and Chris Gogolewski on being nominated for the 2023-2024 STEM Forward Outstanding Educator Award and to Austin High School Packer Profile Coordinator Emily Hovland for winning the award.

Gogolewski is the Project Lead the Way instructor at IJ Holton Intermediate School, while Winter is a Math and Computer Science teacher at Austin High School.

STEM Forward is a collaborative group of southeast Minnesota K-12 school districts, post-secondary partners, and community businesses IBM, Mayo Clinic, The Hormel Institute, and Workforce Development, Inc, who work together to promote STEM excellence in our K-12 schools.

The STEM Forward Outstanding Educator Award “recognizes K-12 professionals who strive toward the highest levels of excellence … with a focus on initiative and continuous improvement in every aspect of their work.”

This year, nine southeast Minnesota educators were nominated for the award, which means one third of those nominated are from Austin.