Fourth grade teacher wins PA 2026 Teacher of the Year

By Anna Gustafson for the Pennsylvania Independent.

Broadcast version by Danielle Smith for Keystone State News Connection reporting for the Pennsylvania Independent-Public News Service Collaboration

Madeline Loring, Pennsylvania’s 2026 Teacher of the Year, is on a mission: to draw people to the education profession that she fell in love with as a child inspired by her own teachers.

“It’s a calling, and I would love to help our young adults respond to that call across the state,” Loring said.

Gov. Josh Shapiro and acting Secretary of Education Carrie Rowe announced on Dec. 8 that Loring is the state’s newest teacher of the year. A Jefferson native who lives on her family’s fifth-generation family farm with her husband and three children, Loring is a fourth grade teacher at Jefferson-Morgan Elementary School in the Jefferson-Morgan School District in Greene County. She is in her 14th year of teaching.

Loring was one of 12 finalists for the award. The Teacher of the Year program is co-sponsored by the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Network of State Teachers of the Year program. This year, 523 nominations were submitted for the Pennsylvania designation.

As part of the program, Loring will in 2026 travel throughout the state to meet and collaborate with fellow educators and will represent the commonwealth in the National Teacher of the Year program.

“Educators have a lifelong impact on the learners they serve, inspiring them to dream big, think critically, and aspire to achieve—and this year’s Teacher of the Year finalists are collectively impacting thousands of young lives across the Commonwealth,” Rowe said in a press release. “The 2026 Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year, Madeline Loring, exemplifies exceptional dedication, service, and passion, and stands as a role model to her students and peers. The Shapiro administration commends her on this outstanding achievement and looks forward to her future success.”

With her new platform, Loring said, she hopes to partner with Shapiro and Rowe to bring more people to teaching. Loring’s work to draw people to her field comes at a time when Pennsylvania, like the rest of the country, faces a teacher shortage. According to 2025 research by Penn State professor of education Ed Fuller and Emily Walsh, a master’s student in education policy and leadership at Penn State, Pennsylvania certified about 19,000 new teachers in 2013 compared to about 6,200 in 2024. That represents a drop of more than 67% and leaves the commonwealth with at least 4,000 fewer teachers than are needed annually, according to the same research.

To support teachers entering the field, Loring said, she would love to see the state’s student teacher stipend program expanded. The program allows student teachers to apply for up to $15,000 in financial support from the state as they complete their required semester of in-classroom training. She also hopes to build excitement around entering the education field among students.

“Whether you’re in year five or year 25, we still need to celebrate and remember that spark that brought us into education and ways that we can continue to connect and engage with our students,” Loring said. “Because the more connections that we provide with our students, the more excited that they’re going to be to come to school. And the more excited they are to come to school, the more motivation they have to maybe say, Well, maybe I want to be a teacher one day. Perhaps this is something I can do, and I think that recruitment can start in our elementary classrooms across the state.”

For Loring, it was the teachers she had while growing up who inspired her to pursue education as a career.

“I had felt so compelled to become a teacher because of what I witnessed here in school, and I had so many teachers that were just creative,” she said. “They made learning exciting, but they also were just some of the most genuine individuals that I can recall.”

As Loring thinks of her future as the Teacher of the Year, she also envisions celebrating her own rural school district and showcasing how a school like Jefferson-Morgan empowers students.

“Our community may be small and we may not have every single resource at our fingertips, but our Rocket Pride is big and our hearts are even bigger,” Loring said, referring to her district’s mascot.

Loring hopes to show future teachers that “it doesn’t matter what your zip code is; it doesn’t matter where you come from, that you can create memorable moments for children in your community.”

Anna Gustafson wrote this article for the Pennsylvania Independent.

Related: From student to teacher: How Pennsylvania’s stipend program helped one woman achieve her dream