‘Milken’ education for $25,000: CHS teacher wins national award

RIO RANCHO – It certainly was a mystery at Cleveland High School this morning, Dec. 13.

Into the school’s gymnasium walked 2,400 CHS students, faculty members and administrators; Rio Rancho School Employees Union President Billie Helean; representatives from the state legislature, county commission and city of Rio Rancho – Mayor Gregg Hull and City Manager Matt Geisel – and, which may have given it away, representatives from the Milken Family Foundation.

Yes, it was a big affair: The Storm Regiment band was knocking out tunes like “Thriller” and “Evil Woman,”, the JROTC color guard marched onto the floor, preceding the national anthem, and there were opening remarks from Rio Rancho Public Schools Superintendent Sue Cleveland and Arsenio Romero, the Public Education Department secretary.

“Today’s a really important day; this is a day where we can celebrate educators, really from across the country, but looking at one locally,” Romero said. “So, it’s a big day for Cleveland High School, it’s a big day for Rio Rancho and it’s a big day for New Mexico.”

It was soon to be a bigger day for a CHS teacher, seated somewhere in the bleachers.

Soon, Dr. Jane Foley, senior vice president of the Milken Educator Awards, took the mic and walked onto the floor.

Minutes later, the mystery was happily solved: Ashli Knoell was the winner of $25,000. She’s one of as many as 75 national Milken award winners this year.

Knoell (pronounced “knoll,” although “Noel” would have been fitting) said she was shocked to hear her name called.

“It was huge,” she said of the announcement. “There aren’t words. There were tears and I was shaking — my eyes having gotten to sucking (tears) back up, because you’re not supposed to cry.”

Where are the proceeds headed?

“This isn’t going toward Christmas,” she said of the 25K. “It’s going into savings and some of it is going into my classroom.”

“I’m very happy for Ashli, obviously” CHS principal Scott Affentranger said, “but I think it’s great to have a teacher highlighted form our staff.

“Cleveland does a lot of things well, and this is just another example,” he said. “She’s energetic, she’s innovative, she never settles for second, she’s a hard-worker, she builds great relationships with her kids and she is by far one of the sharpest teachers I’ve seen when it comes to STEAM and robotics and those kinds of things, so she’s a deserving award winner.”

As she told the Observer in a summer feature, “I’m a lifelong teacher. It’s kinda my thing. You should never stop learning. We do passion projects, where the students pick things they’re interested in.”

Knoell teaches three levels of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) and robotics classes, integrating STEAM into various subject matters. Outside the classroom, she serves as a mentor to new teachers, is an instructional leader for the ninth grade and coordinator of the Near Peer Program, providing tutoring to CHS students through a grant-funded initiative.

A 2006 graduate of Cuba High School, she received a B.S. in elementary education from University of New Mexico in 2010 and a Master of Science for teaching from New Mexico Tech in 2017.

From whence it came

This honor, created by Lowell Milken and frequently described as the “Oscars of Teaching,” has recognized outstanding teachers for more than three decades.

The idea for the Milken Educator Awards started in the early 1980s when Lowell, the chairman and co-founder of the Milken Family Foundation, began exploring strategies for strengthening the education profession, and thus the initiative aims to reward great teachers, as well as “Celebrate, Elevate and Activate” innovators who are guiding America’s next generation of leaders.

Journeying to the 3,000th Milken Educator, 2023-24 will reach $75 million in individual financial prizes spanning the length of the initiative and more than $144 million invested in the Milken Educator Award national network overall, empowering recipients to broaden their impact on the American K-12 profession.

The first awards were presented to a group of 12 outstanding teachers and administrators in California. Several former New Mexico educators who won the award were in the CHS gym, too.

Milken Educators are surprised at schoolwide assemblies before cheering students, respected colleagues, distinguished officials and the media, as was the case Wednesday morning.

Previous Rio Rancho Milken winners

2002: Suzanne Harper, Colinas del Norte Elementary

2015: Colin DeGroot, The ASK Academy