LOS ANGELES, Sept. 8, 2025 – Teachers from Delaware, Kansas, and New Jersey are the recipients of the 2025 American Civic Education Teacher Awards, recognizing their exemplary work preparing young people to become informed and engaged citizens. The ACETA winners are Shae Parks, a high school teacher from rural Delaware; Phillip Wrigley, a high school teacher from urban Kansas; and Robert Schulte, a middle school teacher from suburban New Jersey. The educators will be featured in a Constitution Day webinar on September 17 and in webinars throughout the year. They will be the focus of a special panel session during the National Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference on December 5 in Washington.

The awards are given to teachers of civics, government, and related subjects who have demonstrated exceptional expertise, dynamism and creativity in motivating students to learn about the Constitution, the U.S. government at the federal, state, and local levels, and public policy.

ACETA, established in 2006, is sponsored by the Center for Civic Education, the Center on Representative Government at Indiana University and the National Education Association.

Dr. Donna Phillips, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Civic Education, praised Parks, Wrigley, and Schulte for their dedication to helping young people learn the information and skills necessary to participate as effective and responsible citizens. "These dedicated civic educators exemplify the highest ideals of our profession. By helping each new generation understand the principles of our democracy, they are building stronger students—and a stronger nation," Phillips said.

The three awardees share a passion for explaining democracy and citizenship in an engaging way and helping young people see that local, state, and federal government is relevant to their lives.

Shae Parks works to create lifelong connections between students and the world around them. "If we wish for our democracy to flourish, students need to enter the world with the ability and willingness to engage in civic discourse with everyone around them, not just those they agree with," Parks wrote in her self-portrait essay. "I prepare students to take action towards making the world better." Parks earned a master's degree in curriculum and instruction from Kansas State University. She has been teaching for six years.

"In my classroom, students learn more than how governments function; they practice their power to shape them," wrote Phillip Wrigley in his self-portrait essay. "My students begin seeing themselves as changemakers through field trips, news analyses, letter writing, simulations, diverse primary sources, and multilingual Socratic seminars." Wrigley earned a master's degree in education from Rockhurst University. He has been teaching for 12 years.

Robert Schulte is enthusiastic about teaching media literacy and civil discourse. "My students research a political issue of their choice, but are forced to read from opposing sides, charting bias and fact-checking until they can create an informed decision on how to vote on these issues," wrote Schulte in his self-portrait. Schulte earned a master's degree in American history from Pace University and the Gilder Lehrman Institute. He has been teaching for 20 years.

The ACETA program (civiced.org/aceta) selects and showcases three teachers whose students represent the diversity of the American public and private school systems. Applicants must be full-time classroom teachers of grades K–12. There is no fee to apply. Applicants must submit a self-portrait essay, their resume, and two letters of recommendation—one from a teaching peer and one from their school administrator.

The Center for Civic Education (www.civiced.org) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan educational organization dedicated to fostering the development of informed, responsible participation in civic life by citizens committed to values and principles fundamental to American constitutional democracy.

The Center on Representative Government (corg.iu.edu) is a nonpartisan educational institution that believes our nation’s great experiment of representative democracy has served us well for more than 200 years, but it fundamentally rests on an informed electorate that understands our system of government and participates in our civic life.

The National Education Association (www.nea.org) is the nation’s largest professional employee organization, representing 3.2 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support professionals, school administrators, retired educators and students preparing to become teachers.