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With seven years of high school teaching experience culminating as a master teacher and three years at Hampton Elementary School, Melonee Ginn Mattie has already racked up her own collection of “gold stars” and earned the respect of her colleagues and peers.

Described as a born leader, Ginn Mattie, a former student of Hampton Elementary, is dedicated to the progress and development of every student.  She has served as a mentor teacher on the school leadership team for TAP:  The System for Teacher and Student Advancement and is currently a TAP master teacher. The TAP System is a robust model that allows educators to take on extra roles and responsibilities, receive job-embedded professional development and feedback for improvement, as well as competitive compensation. In addition to her classroom responsibilities, Ginn Mattie is a leader within the school.

For her own students, Ginn Mattie puts a laser-like focus on thinking, problem-solving and applying learning across disciplines. This requires strategic planning aligned to standards and differentiating instruction based on everyone’s abilities, areas of strengths and areas needing refinement. Through it all, Ginn Mattie makes a point to make learning fun, even with the most difficult material.  One way she motivates students is through a system in which they earn tickets for good behavior.  They can then use these tickets to choose rewards from a menu of items they helped to create.

Due to her efforts, her students have made more than a year’s growth based on value-added student achievement data, and her students’ English Language Arts scores represent some of the greatest gains in the school.

At the school level, Ginn Mattie is chair of the Implementation and Data Team, a strong collaborator and encourages her colleagues to be reflective about their practice. Her classroom is used as a model for others, and Ginn Mattie believes that parental involvement is paramount. Along with her commitment to educating the “whole child,” Ginn Mattie encourages her students to participate in Relay for Life to help them become caring adults.

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