Longtime D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) English and Language Arts teacher Jazzmyne Townsend was in for a mid-morning surprise when D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) revealed her as the 2025 D.C. Teacher of the Year in a room of students, teachers and staff members.
Bowser’s big announcement on Thursday came at the end of a National Reading Month celebration at Stanton Elementary School. Throughout much of that morning, students, teachers and staff members sat in the auditorium at Stanton Elementary as they watched several student performances and montages of students and teachers reading books.
Moments later, the auditorium erupted into roaring applause and cheers. Townsend wiped tears from her eyes as she walked up to the front and accepted her award of $7,500. The moment, she said, further emphasized not only the importance of the teaching profession, but her newest role at Stanton Elementary as a K-5 English and Language Arts instructional coach.
“I hope to positively impact teacher instruction and student learning,” said Townsend, a 16-year veteran who’s in her second year at Stanton Elementary. “As a coach, it’s not about pointing fingers at teachers, but seeing the game from my perspective and coaching them through their practice. I think about what reading does for us. It’s not just about decoding. It opens up an entire world. We want students to understand what they’re reading.”
Townsend’s achievement marks the second consecutive year that a DCPS teacher clinched the D.C. Teacher of the Year title. Last year, that honor belonged to Beth Barkley, then an English teacher at the Cardozo Education Campus in Northwest.
Like Barkley, Townsend will compete alongside teachers from other jurisdictions for the title of 2025 National Teacher of the Year. On Thursday, DCPS Chancellor Dr. Lewis D. Ferebee recognized Townsend and Barkley, the latter of whom was also in the audience, for their example.
“What’s exciting about this moment is seeing how everyone celebrates the educator,” Ferebee said as he continued to acknowledge Townsend and the administration at Stanton Elementary. “Ms. Townsend, you have an amazing influence on the young girls here east of the Anacostia River. It says a lot about Mr. Richardson’s leadership.”
In years since District students’ return back to in-person learning, Stanton Elementary has counted among the public school system’s leaders in post-pandemic recovery, thanks in part to the Science of Reading curriculum that teachers learned and executed under the auspices of DCPS’ Office of Learning & Teaching.
By the time Townsend started as a SPED inclusion teacher at Stanton Elementary last year, the reading curriculum was in full swing. She immersed herself in her role, creatively showing students the power of reading. Thanks to Townsend, families at Stanton Elementary received free laundry services, books, and opportunities to read with their children while waiting for their laundry — all as part of what was called “Loads of Literacy.”
Before teaching at Stanton Elementary, Townsend had stints at Randle Highlands Elementary School and Friendship Public Charter School Chamberlain Campus, both also located in Southeast.
While at Randle Highlands, Townsend engaged her female students in “My Sister’s Keeper,” a mentoring program that allowed them to practice comradery and safely grow into adolescence. Last year, after self-publishing her first book, she led her students along the same journey that culminated in their completion of personal narratives that they wrote and illustrated.
Townsend’s class published two books — “I am Magic” and “Magical Me” — through the Studentreasures online self-publishing platform. As Townsend explained in her Teacher of the Year application, the monthslong project instilled pride in students, reinforced the value of hard work, and helped students develop a sense of trust, especially as they engaged in the peer review part of the writing process.
Shortly after receiving her award, Townsend revisited the theme of trust, and how it’s helped her become a better teacher.
“Students deserve someone who’s authentic,” Townsend said. “Teaching wasn’t what I wanted to do, but when it’s in you, it’s in you. The most rewarding thing is looking at my students’ socioemotional skills from the beginning to the end of the year.”
Every year, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education administers the D.C. Teacher of the Year program. This year’s finalists included: Kiara McCalvin, a French teacher at Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science in Northwest; Rahshita Lowe-Watson, a kindergarten teacher at John Francis Education Campus in Northwest; and Andrea Baker Barnes-Johnson, a special education teacher at Anacostia High School.
But Townsend bested them all to receive the title. On Thursday, State Superintendent Dr. Antoinette Mitchell touted what she called Townsend’s appetite for teaching.
“Any teacher that can connect literacy and laundry deserves this award. Ms. Townsend serves as an instructional coach at Stanton and she absolutely loves her job,” Mitchell said. “One parent said that she’s a call or text away when they have concerns about [their] child’s progress. Mr. Richardson said she was an educator of rare talent. We are hungry to follow your lead and give every child in D.C. a chance to succeed.”