Meet The Person:

Lori Gallagher - Art Teacher and former Tech Ed/Family Consumer Science/Art/Music Department chair. Now currently a teacher-on-assignment instructional coach for grades K-12.

Lori has been teaching Art for 25 years, all of them at Hatboro-Horsham H.S. Lori is 1/12 finalists for the 2014 Teacher of the Year for Pennsylvania. She is absolutely honored to be nominated and is anxiously awaiting the results next month.

Lori is extremely passionate about her students. She enjoys learning who they are, their interests, what their desires are for their futures and ultimately what she can do to help them achieve their goals. She takes great pride and deep satisfaction in watching her students achieve what they once thought to be impossible.

Lori's personal passion lies with her family, her art, traveling and spending as much time at the beach as possible. Her family time is spent enjoying sports with her nephews or hanging out in Sea Isle City reading on the beach or playing in the waves. When not playing on the beach, she loves to paint - watercolor and colored pencils are her choice of medium. Other than the beach, her art is inspired by her travel to Italy and Canada. To her, very few places are as beautiful as Tuscany and as unique as Venice. She would go back in a heartbeat!

Influence 10/52Ms. Lori Gallagher Lori in her classroom

Influence: 

Lori is one of the first few people I talked to at Hatboro-Horsham. If you recall my recent blog post with my Principal, Dennis Williams, I spoke with him first when I called to inquire about the open Technology Education position. He then directed me to Lori who was the head of the Art/Family Consumer Science/Tech Ed. department. I vividly remember that conversation with her. I was sitting outside on my patio of our old apartment after work one afternoon.  I was asking her all about the Tech. Ed. department - what they had to offer, equipment, supplies, classes, etc. She was so nice and answered everything as good as she could for me.

A few days later, I got to meet Lori and she showed me around. I then had my interview with her and Dennis. It was a fairly easy interview for me since I currently had a job at Central Bucks and didn't need to leave. But I wanted to be in a high school and I was getting a great vibe being in the building and around her as well.  You can see how that story has gone!

Lori is an awesome teacher. Her students create pieces of art that you just marvel at. I can really appreciate their artwork because I literally have zero artistic talent! And I know many people do not, which is why it's amazing to see her in action and getting her kids to create such amazing work.

Lori is very down to earth and her room is always open for students to hang out in and get work done. She really has created a great learning environment for her kids. Many of her students have gone on to be extremely successful both professionally and personally. And I know that is from her knowledge and guidance. As a department head, (currently not this year as she has taken on a year's position as an instructional coach) Lori always has our back. In the field of the 'Arts' as we are, you need someone who will fight for your staff. Budget cuts, various state level student tests, furloughs, demotions, etc are all part of the annual fight we face in our areas. But Lori helps keep us relevant within the building and district. Her success as a teacher is an obvious reason why. It's hard to cut a program or programs when she has brought such success to the district. Her passion for teaching, for the students and for Art is a major reason why we have such a great department here at H-H. So thank you Lori for being a great teacher, mentor and department head! Best of luck as the 2014 PA Teacher of the Year - You deserve every part of that award!