Four teachers and an administrator from the Los Alamitos Unified School District have been honored by a countywide arts advocacy organization for making a positive difference in the lives of students through arts education.
Teachers Allison Armstrong, Laura Frangiamore, Tom Plunkett and Leslie Obert, and former Superintendent Dr. Sherry Kropp were named Outstanding Arts Educators by the Orange County Music and Arts Administrators (OCMAA), a network of school district leaders, community arts educators, businesses, and parents dedicated to quality, equity and access to arts programs for all students.
Armstrong, director of theatre arts at McAuliffe Middle School; Frangiamore, a third-grade teacher at Hopkinson Elementary; Obert, a third-grade teacher at McGaugh Elementary; and Kropp all received the 2019 Orange County Music and Arts Award. Plunkett, Director of Bands at Los Alamitos High School, was named a 2019 Outstanding Arts Educator.
In addition, Obert received the arts organization’s Julianna McGrath Award, which recognizes a passionate elementary teacher who provides arts learning for their students and is looked to by the staff as an arts resource and leader. Obert is the director of the renowned McGaugh Pageant of the Arts, part of a schoolwide arts program in which student-created paintings are brought to life through original music, costumes and dance.
All five Los Alamitos Unified educators were honored in a ceremony earlier this month at the Samueli Theatre in the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa.
