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Western Oaks Middle School Teacher Honored 
Western Oaks Middle School teacher Brenda Davis has been selected as Oklahoma’s Multicultural Teacher of the Year by the University of Central Oklahoma’s Multicultural Institute. Davis, an English Language Learner (ELL) teacher, is in her second year of teaching at Western Oaks.
Since coming to Western Oaks, Davis has established a program with a local college to bring in college-age mentors to visit 7th-grade and 8th-grade ELL students, build rapport with them and work together on goal setting. Another program started by Davis brings Putnam City West High School students to Western Oaks to serve as math mentors to 6th-grade ELL students.
“Brenda Davis is an exemplary teacher and has made a tremendous impact on our students. She’s enthusiastic, energetic and innovative, and uses those qualities to inspire students to learn,” says Lynette Thompson, principal at Western Oaks.
Criteria for the teaching award includes demonstrated excellence in multicultural education and diversity and being a positive role model who exhibits an image that promotes multicultural and diversity concepts.
Davis is originally from New Zealand, where she taught performing arts, 4th-grade and 5th-grade in public schools. She also taught Te Reo Maori, the language of the indigenous people of New Zealand, in a private school. Before coming to Putnam City, she taught for five years in Oklahoma City elementary schools.
Davis holds a bachelor’s degree in education from Wellington Teachers' College in Wellington, New Zealand. She will graduate from UCO in May with a master’s degree in education administration.
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