3 Teachers and School Trustee Honored for Accomplishments

The Orange County Department of Education has honored three teachers and a school board member as this year’s winners of Outstanding Contributions to Education awards.

The county department, headquartered in Costa Mesa, presents the annual awards to teachers and school administrators selected for exceptional work.

Those honored were Jan Clark-George, a mentor teacher at Walter Knott School in Buena Park (Centralia School District); John H. Feaster, recently retired chairman of the Sonora High School science department in La Habra (Fullerton Joint Union High School District); Sherry Loofbourrow, president of the Newport-Mesa Board of Education in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, and John Wayne Schlatter, speech and drama teacher at McAuliffe Middle School (Los Alamitos Unified School District).

Clark-George was praised for many activities, including having written, produced and directed a video movie for parents entitled “Test Wiseness.” Feaster, who retired in June, was cited for sharing with high school students “his love for nature and the outdoors.”

Loofbourrow has been active in anti-drug organizations and has served as a legislative representative on the California School Boards Assn. since 1982.

The board praised Schlatter for “developing an individual curriculum for each student . . . (that) is based, primarily, on how he can help the students feel good about themselves.”

The four were honored during a meeting of the Board of Education.