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- Stephanie
Schnabel Vickers
 Reading specialist and technology coordinator, Richmond Elementary
School, Portland, Oregon.
-
- Stephanie volunteered to take the lead role, facilitating the
teachers' planning in online chats and conference calls throughout the
year even though she'd never chatted online before. The teacher
training side of it was more familiar to Stephanie. It's what Peace
Corps trained her to do in 1971, when she went to Nimba County. The
program was called TISEP, Teacher in Service or Special Education
Program. She later taught 7-12th grades at St. Mary's High School in
Sanniquellie for two years and then trained new volunteers as they
came into the country. She has not been back to Liberia since 1975.
- A teacher for the 25 years since, she is now the reading specialist
and technology coordinator at the Richmond Elementary school in
Portland. She also coordinates a literacy program for students in
grades 1-5 who have trouble learning to read and provides staff
development and support for literacy.
With the help of two assistants, she organizes community
volunteers (mentors) who work one on one with lessons she plans for
the students. She has been named HOSTS (Help One Student To Succeed
Program) National Teacher of the Year for Reading and Math.
 When Stephanie Vickers's school heard she was going, they took up a
collection and filled 11 file boxes with school supplies. A friend at
Apple Computer had a laptop donated for the workshop. Stephanie has
made several guest appearances in primary school classrooms explaining
what school is like in Africa.
- Stephanie echoes a sentiment that is universal among the former
Peace Corps volunteers in the program. "When I first went to
Liberia, I worked with teachers and wasn't sure how much I helped
them. Now, after nearly 33 years in teaching, I feel that I now have
more to give to the Liberian teachers' education. I have always cared
a great deal about Liberia and have wanted to go back to Liberia and
give back to the people and the country that have been a big part of
my life." She has two nearly adult sons, Chas and Tyler, who she says
questioned her LEAP decision during the spring uncertainty, giving her
the perfect opportunity to say, "Now you know how it feels."
-
-
 Bobbi Bronstein- Third grade teacher at Mountain Shadows Elementary School, Pheonix,
Arizona
-
- Bobbi was a teacher trainer at Zorzor Teacher Training Institute in
1978 and later created a Teacher Resource Center in Sannequellie,
where she observed and modeled teaching strategies and held workshops.
 She and her husband, Steve, scuba dive around the world. Last
winter, sitting on a beach in Fiji and reflecting on the abundance in
her life, she prayed for an opportunity to use her strengths to give
something back. When she returned home, a friend had e-mailed her
about LEAP's need for a language arts teacher trainer who could pick
up the planning with barely three months to go. She also had to master
the "chat" medium to join planning sessions every Sunday.
She was up to speed in no time and even mailed crates of supplies by
the mid-May shipping deadline. She is digging up some of those
appropriate resources that were developed for Liberian teachers 20
years ago.
- Bobbi has been awarded the 1996 Silver Apple from the state of
Arizona and the 1998 Sylvan Learning Center Teacher Appreciation
Award. But she says that teaching for 30 years is a reward in itself.
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