Updated: Golden Apple Awards Ceremony for Teacher Mike Town is February 25.

Updated, 1/6 - The School Employees Credit Union of Washington, KCTS 9, and PEMCO Insurance recently announced the winners of the 17th annual Golden Apple Awards for individuals and programs that make a positive difference in Washington state education for grades pre-K through 12.

The Golden Apple Awards are scheduled to be broadcast on Wednesday, February 25 at 8:00 p.m. It’s a one hour program. It will be available online the following day.
This year’s recipient of the Stanley O. McNaughton Golden Apple Award is Mike Town, teacher of AP Environmental Science in grades 11-12 at Redmond High School (RHS).

Mike Town is known throughout the Lake Washington School District for his passion for environmental science. He personally advocates for all students to have access to rigorous AP courses and believes strongly that if a student is introduced to college course material and receives credit, the odds of them attending college will increase dramatically.

Because of this, Town has opened his **six AP courses to all students with great success. According to the Redmond-Reporter.com **fifty percent of the RHS student body enrolls in his courses and 90 percent of these score well enough on the AP exams to earn college credit.

Outside of the classroom, Town mentors the RHS Environmental Club, which successfully reduced the carbon footprint by implementing environmental changes at the school, including solar panels, a recycling program and environmentally friendly practices in the cafeteria.

PEMCO Insurance will award each Golden Apple winner a $1,500 grant to support their classroom, school or educational program. For more information visit http://www.kcts9.org/. --

This article was abbreviated and excerpted from a story at Redmond-Reporter.com, 11/12/08

**Correction: The Redmond Blog estimates a student body population of RHS at ~1500. Mr. Town teaches 5 periods/day. 5 classes x 30 students = 150 students/year or 10% of the student body.