MBA Teacher Wins Award of Excellence

Friday, December 22, 2006

For the fifth year in a row, a teacher from Monterey Bay Academy (MBA) has been named a Teacher of Excellence by the Adventist Alumni Awards Foundation (AAA).

Donna Baerg, MBA’s math teacher, has been honored with the award that includes a check for $1000 and a free trip to Arizona for the annual AAA awards presentation in February.

“I feel truly honored,” Baerg said. “This award means a great deal to me because teaching is something I love to do.”

Each year the teachers who are being recognized receive their awards at a banquet in their honor, which will also feature a short multi-media biography of each teacher. The teachers are nominated through their respective Conference Offices of Education and Baerg is the fifth MBA teacher in a row to be recognized. She follows her parents, Bob and Betty Baerg, who are now retired after 38 years at MBA, Tim Kubrock, who received the award as MBA’s history teacher and now serves as the school principal, and Steve Walls, who has taught English at MBA for 40 years. This year only 11 teachers have been selected from the thousands in the education system of the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists and only six of these teachers work at the secondary level.

“My parents were thrilled when they heard the news,” Baerg said. “It’s very special to me that I’m the third person in my family to win this award. My parents were both outstanding teachers and they love MBA. I think it's incredible MBA has been honored five years in a row. I think that it’s a real testament to the quality teachers we have here.”

Baerg has been around MBA for most of her life. Her father taught physics and chemistry and her mother taught math for 38 years. Baerg graduated from MBA in 1986 and finished her bachelor of science degree in mathematics in 1990 at Pacific Union College in Angwin, CA. A year later she completed her master’s degree in Administration and Leadership at La Sierra University in Riverside, CA. She taught math and computers at College View Academy in Lincoln, NE from 1991 to 1998 before returning to MBA to serve as the Vice Principal for Academic Affairs. In 2004, Baerg returned to the classroom after her mother’s retirement. In addition to teaching math, Baerg helps coach several girls’ varsity teams, she is a senior class sponsor and she is heading up the new National Honor Society chapter at MBA.

“I love teaching at MBA and I feel blessed to be recognized with this award,” Baerg said. “But, the most amazing thing about receiving this award is that it makes me want to do even more for the students I get to teach.”
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Monterey Bay Academy is a co-educational Christian high school owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.