The Chicago-based Golden Apple Foundation was created in 1985 to honor outstanding Chicago-area teachers as grandly as Hollywood honors its actors at the Academy Awards.
There now are 240 teachers who have been celebrated as Golden Apple Award winners and more than 1,000 Golden Apple Scholars teaching or on their way to teaching in Illinois schools of need. Recent Golden Apple recipients each received tuition-free sabbaticals at Northwestern University, a personal computer, $3,000, and induction into the Golden Apple Academy of Educators.
Many of the Golden Apple recipients throughout the years have been graduates of NLU because the university does such an excellent and thorough job preparing its teachers. Dominic Belmonte, president and CEO of the Chicago-based Golden Apple Foundation, said about National-Louis University: “It's become no surprise to me that invariably each year a Golden Apple recipient is discovered to have a National-Louis heritage. While the process we employ towards championing the excellence we seek does not focus on where the degree was obtained, time and again we discover to our delight that the path the excellent teachers we honor take passes through NLU. Doesn't that tell you something about the quality of the experience received there?”
The Golden Apple Foundation of Rockford, IL, has been recognizing and supporting excellence in education since 1997 when the Rockford Public Schools Foundation merged with the Community Education Foundation to create the Golden Apple Foundation of Rockford and began recognizing teachers in the Rockford Public Schools.
Today, the Rockford Golden Apple Foundation recognizes and supports teaching excellence and increases community involvement in education throughout Winnebago and Boone Counties through Golden Apple Teacher Recognition, Golden Apple Teacher Academy and Golden Apple Classroom grants. Recent Golden Apple recipients were presented with a cash award, professional development stipend, computers and software and the Terry Ingrassia Professional Development Scholarship at Rockford College. They were also inducted into the Golden Apple Teacher Academy.
Many Rockford Golden Apple recipients are alumni of NLU. Lori Berkes-Nelson,executive director of the Golden Apple Foundation of Rockford, says it's “pretty great” that many of the recipients have been graduates of National-Louis. “It's a nice statement about the university,” she explains.“...NLU provides an accessible, quality education.”
