Meet 2024-25 NJ State Teacher of the Year
Stefanie Lachenauer was one of those children who knew they would grow up to be a teacher. The oldest of three sisters, she loved everything about school.
Lachenauer grew up in Nutley, but as much as she loved school, she faced some challenges.
“I struggled with stress,” Lachenauer recalls. “I dealt with some bullying and often felt left out. I had that constant feeling of never being good enough. My grades were good, but no amount of clubs or activities could make me feel like I was enough.”
Lachenauer reinvented herself in college. She earned her undergraduate degree from Douglass College, Rutgers University in 2006 and went on to earn master’s degree in education from Rutgers Graduate School of Education in 2007.
“When I got to college, I had a blank slate to truly discover myself,” Lachenauer says. “I never saw myself as a leader before, but when I got to college, I transformed. I was the president of my class and served in student government, including as the executive vice president. I also helped run the Save Douglass College campaign.”
At times, though, Lachenauer still struggled with feelings of self-doubt.
“I actually failed a class in college in my first semester,” Lachenauer recalls. “It was so hard for me, but it was the best thing for me to go through. I learned a lot about resilience, and that a failure isn’t a true failure if you learn from it. I retook that class and earned an A!”
Lachenauer had a great student teaching experience in South Brunswick, with cooperating teacher Neel Desai. Desai does a lot of mentoring across the state with different groups and Lachenauer really appreciated having a good mentor who pushed her to continue learning and perfecting her craft.
During her time at Douglass, Lachenauer had an externship over winter break with Susan Lacy, the principal of Village Elementary School in Montgomery.
“I had the opportunity to observe many different classrooms,” Lachenauer says. “It really helped me identify what kind of a school environment I wanted to be in. I knew that I needed a school where I could keep learning, keep growing and have the ability to take risks and try new things. I always want to keep challenging myself to be a better educator and to continue to learn more. I chose Montgomery because I wanted to be in a place where they saw more in me and there was room for growth and trying new things.”
Teaching what she wished she’d learned
Lachenauer began her career at the lower middle school teaching social studies and language arts. Twelve years ago, she moved to Montgomery Upper Middle School, first teaching seventh and eighth grade social studies, but recently she has embraced a new challenge.
“I want to help kids know who they are and love themselves,” Lachenauer says. “Their grades don’t define them. One of the things that I love about my job right now is that I am teaching my students the skills that I wish I’d had back in school.”
In her own life, Lachenauer has worked on building her self-care and stress management strategies. She has two yoga certifications, three mindfulness certifications and is a trained trauma-informed practitioner, coach and trainer. She found these strategies to be so beneficial, she shares them with staff and students and is completing her first book, Let the Glitter Settle: Mindfulness for Teens.
“I was always really into social-emotional learning (SEL), but it was around 2012 that I really incorporated mindfulness and other practices,” Lachenauer says. “I’m passionate about kids loving themselves as they are, but also seeing themselves as agents of change. I was able to create two courses that really support students.”
Lachenauer teaches four classes of Skills for Success. Together, they identify their strengths and personal learning styles, learn stress relief strategies and the science of stress. They take personality assessments similar to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Lachenauer conducts lessons on success, risk and failure. Students work on career exploration with the Future Me project. There are also mindfulness lessons incorporated throughout the course, so students have a chance to practice frequently and build that skillset.
“I want them to use everything they learn in my class to think about what they want their future to look like,” Lachenauer says. “When you know who you are, you can make better choices for yourself, and you know what works for you.”
Learning to work toward a common goal
Lachenauer also teaches Global Leadership based on the United Nations Global Goals for Sustainability.
“We use the design thinking process and pick one of the U.N. goals and work on a solution that’s culturally appropriate,” Lachenauer says. “We study how the problem has been addressed before and look at what works and what doesn’t.”
Montgomery Upper Middle School is one of only 37 schools in New Jersey with a unified elective program where special education students learn alongside general education students.
“Most of the unified classes are arts and music, but we also included the Global Leadership program,” Lachenauer says. “It is powerful to watch our students of varying backgrounds and abilities work together toward a common goal to create positive change in the community.”
Traveling with a purpose
Lachenauer brings that same energy to her work with Montgomery’s Youth Action Board, a community group of high school students that she founded and facilitates who meet to address the issues facing them and their peers. Funded through the Municipal Alliance and Youth Services Commission, the board conducts social media campaigns and creates events and outreach to address the issues their peers are facing. In 2023, the board held a Mental Health Matters Event to help break the stigma of getting mental health support. In 2024, they created an event about social media and its impact on youth.
Lachenauer’s energy and global mindset aren’t just assets in her community, they’ve also taken her around the world. She has presented at conferences in Houston and Dallas, Texas, and Berlin, Germany. Her work has had global reach both in person and virtually.
“I like to travel with purpose,” Lachenauer says. “I’ve traveled to more than 50 countries, sometimes with students. I’ve done a bunch of service learning projects with Education First and Habitat for Humanity. With students, we built mud brick homes in Honduras, a sidewalk in Argentina and a road in Peru.”
Lachenauer founded the Joyful Journeys Travel & Adventure Club where she organizes student and adult travel. She has partnered with Education First since 2014 when she spent a summer volunteering at the Mariposa Foundation. She has led over 10 student tours and two adult tours. This summer they are going to Japan on a STEM tour.
“I don’t speak great Spanish yet, but I was inspired by Mrs. Perrotta, my high school Spanish teacher,” Lachenauer says. “Thanks to her influence, I’ve been to 10 out of 22 Spanish-speaking countries and developed a love of the language and cultures.”
These global experiences in education are inspired, in part, by her beloved grandmother.
“My grandparents lived in Germany but neither went to school past the eighth grade,” Lachenauer recalls. “They instilled in me the importance of education. My grandmother lived with me during the pandemic, and she told me that she always wished she could have been a teacher. I remember feeling a sense of guilt for the opportunities she didn’t have that I got to enjoy. Sometimes you compare yourself to other people who seem to have fancy careers. But to hear my grandmother, who I loved most in the world, say that she wanted to be a teacher changed the way I looked at it.”
Self Care Days
In 2020, Lachenauer created Self Care Days for her school with the Compassionate Care Team, her school’s trauma informed group. This came as a response from the pandemic. They now have a Self Care Day once a marking period where they teach students coping skills, stress management and executive functioning skills. They teach students about wellness through the wellness wheel, which can help individuals identify core health values and goals.
These events have been so successful they are now operating district wide.
Opportunities to visit schools statewide
Lachenauer is proud to have been named the Somerset County Teacher of the Year and now, the New Jersey State Teacher of the Year.
“It’s the greatest honor to be able to represent our state and support the amazing things we do here,” Lachenauer says. “I’m really excited to share where I can, to listen and to learn about our education across the state. Educational programming may vary, but student and staff wellness is very important to me. I’m excited to visit other schools and share my story about what I’ve learned and help others on their journey.”
Lachenauer will have more time to visit other classrooms as the Teacher of the Year. Among the perks of being named the Teacher of the Year is a six-month sabbatical where she will work with the New Jersey Department of Education in Trenton.
If you’d like to connect with Lachenauer to have her visit your school, you can email her at 2025NJSTOY@gmail.com.
In addition to the sabbatical, courtesy of program sponsor ETS, Lachenauer also will receive $3,000 worth of technology equipment. NJEA will provide a rental car, equipped with EZ Pass, to help her travel to speaking engagements and meetings across the state. NJEA also will provide complimentary access to all major NJEA workshops and training opportunities, a $1,500 clothing allowance, media training and communications support and funding for a trip to Washington, D.C. to meet with the other state teachers of the year and the president of the United States.
Kathryn Coulibaly is the associate editor of the NJEA Review and provides content and support to njea.org. She can be reached at kcoulibaly@njea.org.