Vince Santo Pietro, 2012 Shoreline Teacher of the Year

Vince Santo Pietro, science teacher at Shorecrest High School, has been selected as the 2012 Shoreline Teacher of the Year.

From left, Shorecrest High School Principal Pat Hegarty,
Shoreline Teacher of the Year Vince Santo Pietro, his wife Nadine Santo Pietro,
and Superintendent Sue Walker.
Photo courtesy Shoreline Schools

Vince has taught science at Shorecrest since 1994. He will be honored at a reception on Monday, May 14 prior to the School Board meeting that evening. The public is invited. Shoreline will honor its certificated staff members during Teacher Appreciation Week, May 14 to 18.

“Whatever the task – managing an experiment in chemistry, coordinating and communicating a technology initiative, or jumping in as the go-to guy when you take 160 people on a 10-day trip to Ireland – Vince Santo Pietro is not only one of our school leaders, but he also believes in the importance of being a team player and partner,” his nomination read in part. “ 

In his classroom Vince is the master of questioning strategies, probing students and encouraging higher level thinking skills as he provides feedback to push students toward their learning goals. He incorporates real world applications to make subject matter relevant, and stays current with developments in his teaching assignment.”

Vince has served for many years as Shorecrest Science Club advisor, as school webmaster, and on its emergency preparedness committee. He has been a member of District technology committees, served as the District’s representative to the Washington State Public Health lab assessment committee, and on the design team for the new Shorecrest.

Each year he organizes a popular Astronomy Night that is open to the public. He teaches for the UW in the high school program, and he received a two-year Murdock grant to do astronomy research at the UW.

For the recent trip by the Shorecrest marching band, pipers, Highland Dancers and flags to Ireland, Vince worked on the staff team to handle many of the organizational logistics for band director Vince Caruso to make the trip a success.

In the community, Vince was one of the founding members, and a clarinet player, of the Around the Sound Community Band, a performance group dedicated to the joy of music and sharing that joy through community service. The band began as a Shorecrest senior project.

Vince also volunteers for the Fremont Arts Council, and has served as head of security for the famous Fremont Solstice Parade. Finally, Vince is devoted to his church community, the University Congregational United Church of Christ. He has served on several of the church’s boards and committees, notably, the facilities board, and he worked on a committee helping to organize the moving and packing through an extensive remodel. Recently he helped organize and presented a series of programs exploring faith and science.

“Vince brings as much zest and pride and pleasure to a new lab experiment as he does to a brand new iPad, as much passion to a Power Standard as he would to correcting an astronomy quiz. Vince is a doer not to keep busy, but to stretch and to grow and to keep on learning and trying, and it is that fundamental, innocent, unvarnished revelry in learning that makes him such an unassuming but tremendously powerful role model for our students. Vince personifies the most basic cornerstone of our work – learning - in everything he touches at Shorecrest, and indeed in our larger community,” his nomination concluded.

Vince is married to Nadine Santo Pietro, who teaches integrated arts at Echo Lake Elementary. He graduated from Temple University with a bachelor of arts in Chemistry and from the University of Pennsylvania with a master of science in Chemistry. He also has a masters in education from Seattle Pacific University. He began his career in the science museum industry, first with the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and later with the Pacific Science Center in Seattle.

The Shoreline Teacher of the Year is selected by a committee of certificated and classified staff, administrators and parents from nominations received from throughout the District. Vince will receive a $500 professional development grant from the Shoreline Public Schools Foundation and will be Shoreline's nominee for the 2013 Washington State Teacher of the Year.