Awareity is proud to announce that one of our very own TIPS Administrators was awarded the LGBTQIA Educator of the Year Award at last weekend’s CESCaL conference!
Below is an excerpt from Tenna’s nomination:
Some of the greatest leaders in history find opportunities for helping others during times of adversity. Tenna Whitsel is one of these great leaders. As the Student Services Coordinator for Secondary Schools at Tulsa Public Schools (TPS), Tenna sees daily the tremendous challenges students, personnel, parents and communities are facing in building and maintaining a safe learning environment. Tenna has been a champion of student and human rights in the Tulsa community.
In 2011, she developed and disseminated mandatory training for all staff regarding the OCR “Dear Colleague Letters” issued to the nation’s districts regarding discrimination and harassment of students. Tenna led the district in developing a comprehensive bullying and harassment policy inclusive of LGBTQ language and protection with emphasis on prevention and intervention. She also created a comprehensive suicide policy focused on prevention and response systems, especially considering the high risk to LGBTQ population
As an outgrowth of TPS’s anti-bullying and safe school efforts, Tenna also set out to find better ways to equip TPS personnel to intervene and prevent incidents and improve the school climate while helping students connect with responsible adults to get the support they need. She researched and procured funding from a community partner to provide the TIPS platform from Awareity, an anonymous incident reporting system for all students including LGBTQ students, all staff, and the community at large to report bullying and harassment, and other safety concerns such as weapons, suicide, child abuse etc.
Tenna is a true leader because she took steps above and beyond to lead the way in helping TPS build and maintain the safest possible environment for all TPS students. Tenna Whitsel is a passionate super‐educator who is not waiting on Superman, but is becoming her own Superwoman.
To learn more about Tenna’s outstanding accomplishments, please tune in next Tuesday, February 28th at 11:00 CST to hear Tenna’s live interview with Larry Jacobs on Education Talk Radio (www.education-talkradio.org).