It was announced this week that Kaia Anderson of Sartori Elementary School in Renton is a 2025 recipient of the nation’s highest honor for STEM teachers.

Announced Monday, Jan. 13, the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST) will be awarded to Anderson and hundreds of others, including five Washington state recipients.

The PAEMST and the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) will be presented to 336 teachers and mentors and “honor the vital role that America’s teachers and mentors play in shaping the next generation of technical leaders, including scientists, engineers, explorers, and innovators.”

Anderson is a first-grade teacher and has been teaching at Sartori for the past six years. She has been a teacher for over a decade and, according to the Renton School District, she has been engaged in equitable science education reform for over 12 years.

“As part of her passion for learning, Kaia has been participating in an ongoing researcher-teacher partnership since 2014 through the Ambitious Teaching research group at the University of Washington. Kaia has shared her experiences at educational conferences through the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA) and the American Educational Research Association (AERA),” said the school district in a Facebook post.

“Her teaching has been featured on the Teaching Channel and used in many teacher education courses. Kaia continues to develop and pilot new science units based on the latest equitable instructional design research. She has also been a panelist and guest speaker for the National Academies of Sciences (NAS), Engineering (NAE), and Medicine (NAM).”

Established in 1983, PAEMST is awarded to K-12 math and science teachers across all 50 states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, Department of Defense Education Activity (DODEA) schools and the U.S. territories American Samoa, Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and U.S. Virgin Islands. It is the highest recognition that a K-12 STEM teacher in the United States can recieve for outstanding teaching.

For more information, visit whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2025/01/13/president-biden-honors-more-than-300-americans-with-nations-highest-award-for-science-and-mathematics-teachers-and-mentors/.

Along with $10,000 from the National Science Foundation, Anderson will recieve a certificate signed by the President and a trip to Washington, D.C. to celebrate her and the other recipients’ accomplishments.