Lewiston third-grade teacher Heidi Cornell named 2025 Idaho Teacher of the Year; highlights professional learning communities

Superintendent Debbie Critchfield introduced Heidi Cornell as Idaho's Teacher of the Year 2025 during a Senate Education Committee hearing. Cornell, a third-grade teacher at Orchards Elementary in the Lewiston School District, told committee members her classroom mission is "that you feel deeply loved when you are with me," a guiding principle she said includes "the easy to love, the unlovable, and the ones who disagree with me."

Cornell described leading her school through adoption of a professional learning community (PLC) model and said the district hired a PLC lead at each elementary school to guide staff collaboration. She said the school revised its mission, vision and values and that teams used PLC guiding questions — "What do students need to learn? How do we know if they have learned it? What do we do if they have already learned it? And what do we do if they haven't learned it?" — to design common formative assessments, interventions and enrichment.

Cornell said the school mission is "we work interdependently to empower all to be lifelong learners and leaders." She described classroom units such as "Coins for a Cause," in which third graders research local nonprofit organizations and write persuasive speeches asking their classmates to support a local charity, and she said classroom partnerships with Lewis-Clark State College and the University of Idaho bring interns into the classroom to expose students to the importance of higher education and teaching as a career.

Asked about resources, Cornell said teachers need "money, time, and people," and added that her school's PLCs meet weekly for about an hour and a half. She told the committee her work as a PLC lead — a role she held before returning to the classroom — allowed teams to create student-friendly learning targets and a cycle of assessment and response that produced growth for all students.

Committee members congratulated Cornell and asked several brief questions about PLC staffing and incentives; Cornell said the district previously allocated teacher-leadership funds to various roles but she was not aware of a formal statewide "teacher leader" certificate in her district. Her remarks were presented for the record; no committee action followed.