Washington Post Awards Honor Flower Hill Principal, Odessa Shannon Educator
The Washington Post announced the winners and finalists of its 2025 Principal and Teacher of the Year Awards on April 22. Each year, The Post presents the awards to encourage excellence in school leadership and contributions to the improvement of education in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Read more about the MCPS finalists below:
Dr. Joshua Fine
Dr. Joshua Fine, principal at Flower Hill Elementary School since 2020, has transformed the Gaithersburg school by increasing literacy achievement across all demographic areas and significantly outpacing state and district proficiency levels for Emerging Multilingual Learners. In the winter of 2021, he was approached about participating in a structured literacy pilot program for kindergarten, first and second graders and he jumped at the chance. He knew that changing to an evidence-based instructional approach would yield positive outcomes. In the past two years, student achievement has significantly increased across races and service groups. The program, for first and second graders, allows students to have support with their language acquisition skills and teaches them how to read and write in an environment that provides targeted instruction.
Similarly, when contacted by the math department requesting a math coach to support different teams with collaborative planning and instruction, he also did not hesitate. He continually wants to try different ideas and approaches.
Fine believes that collaboration and teamwork are key to student academic success. He is always open and willing to sit down with teachers to hear new ideas on how to make learning engaging and fun for students. He has an open-door policy with parents and students; he also holds monthly town hall meetings with students.
He is rarely in his office because he is often in the bus loop, hallways and classrooms greeting and visiting with students and staff. His positive energy, innovative style and fierce advocacy on behalf of students are contagious.
Fine is the president of the Maryland Association of Elementary School Principals, and a member of the Maryland Department of Education’s Blueprint for Maryland’s Future Expert Review Team.
He began his career as a middle school social studies and ESOL teacher before serving as an assistant school administrator. He has a bachelor’s degree in secondary education from American University, a master’s in urban education policy from Brown University and a doctoral degree in educational leadership from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.
Rebecca Burtram
Rebecca Burtram is an English teacher, 7th grade team leader and testing coordinator at Odessa Shannon Middle School.
She inspires students by building relationships and connecting lessons to her students’ lives and to the world beyond the classroom. She shares stories from her own large and diverse family, which includes students from a variety of backgrounds and paths, and that often creates an immediate bond.
She and her co-team leader take their students on six field trips a year, including a visit to the National Aquarium, connecting science lessons to real-world experiences; a local high school play, which exposes them to literature in action and a potential extracurricular or career path; and an ice skating trip, which challenges students to try new things, push through discomfort and build resilience. Students also visit a local retirement home, teaching the senior citizens how to use smartphones, computers and iPads, and students have lunch and conversation with them. They also continue to strengthen bonds by making holiday cards for the elderly throughout the school year.
A teacher for more than 20 years, Burtram begins each school year by encouraging students to take ownership for their growth in her class; she has them look at their testing data with her and they write goal-setting paragraphs.
Test results are showing that her methods have helped students improve in ELA. Of the 7th grade English students she taught in 2023-2024, 29.4 percent demonstrated proficiency on the ELA MCAP exam in 6th grade. But by the end of 7th grade, 34.1 percent demonstrated proficiency.
Outside the classroom, she has used her content-area expertise as a freelance writer and author, in corporate marketing and communications leadership, and as a keynote speaker. This has helped how she delivers content in class. She breaks down the writing process into easily accessible steps, helping students understand the why behind writing strategies and connecting the content to real-world applications. She also helps them develop confidence in speaking.
She believes that meeting student needs requires collaboration. One of the most unique ways she has done this is by creating the Whole-School Restorative Accountability Program (WRAP), a behavior management program that focuses heavily on meeting students’ individual needs and strategies for success. Colleagues also call her flexible, adaptable and committed to ensuring success for all students.
See the winners and full list of finalists here.