Kirkwood School District Names Teacher of the Year

The Kirkwood School District has named Maria Stobbe Teacher of the Year for the 2011-2012 school year.

Stobbe is a seventh-grade communication arts teacher at North Kirkwood Middle School, where she is currently the school's Teacher of the Year. In her new role, she will address staff at the opening-day program in August, in which she and the district's Teachers of the Year for each school will be officially introduced. 

Stobbe has 17 years of experience in education, 15 of which are with the Kirkwood School District. She joined the district in 1993 as a fourth-grade teacher at Keysor Elementary School and left the district in 2001 to devote more time to her family.

She returned to the district in 2005 to teach communication arts at the middle school and currently serves as the chairwoman of the Communication Arts Department.

Additionally, she also leads the district's UNITE Advisory Board, a group that analyzes data and develops programs centered on character education, service learning and social justice.

Stobbe has a master’s degree in elementary education from the University of Missouri at St. Louis and a bachelor’s degree in education from Southwest Missouri State University.