March 3, 2023
Photos: Music Specialist Marie Hill and Principal Carrie Cormier
Marie Hill, a music and STEAM specialist at Douglas L. Jamerson Jr. Elementary, was named MSA Regional Teacher of the Year. And James B. Sanderlin IB World School Principal Carrie Comier was named MSA Regional Principal of the Year. Both educators are finalists for national awards.
The MSA awards honor and elevate magnet educators who promote equity and diversity for students in magnet schools. Hill and Cormier will be celebrated at the annual MSA conference from April 18-23 in Dallas.
Hill has been a music educator for more than three decades. At Jamerson, she incorporates sound and space science into her K-5 music curriculum. She has developed and presented STEAM workshop sessions and creative classroom management sessions on a local, state, and national level. She works with the Jamerson staff to develop engineering units and present musicals with related STEAM lessons based on children’s literature. Her latest project is a musical based on the graphic novel, CatStronauts. She is a Solar Systems Ambassador and serves as a volunteer liaison on behalf of NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In April 2019, she was awarded the Ray Lien Outstanding Aerospace Educator Award at the SUN ‘n FUN Aerospace Educators’ Workshop.
Cormier, who took the helm at Sanderlin in 2019, expanded the IB magnet program from 500 to 800 students.The expansion has resulted in a more diverse population while maintaining high student achievement and increasing learning gains for minority students. Last year, her school was awarded the President’s Magnet School of Merit Award of Excellence as an equitable and diverse magnet school. Cormier serves as a district Blended Coach, and currently mentors three new principals. She began her educational career in 2002 in Manatee County as a language arts teacher and reading coach. She joined Pinellas in 2014 as principal at Seventy-Fourth Street Elementary and has also served as principal of Safety Harbor Middle School.
