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On September 10, 2024, the New York State Board of Regents named Colleen Keough as the 2025 New York State Teacher of the Year. Keough, who earned a B.S. in Childhood Education and B.S. in Psychology at Russell Sage College in 2006, is a second-grade teacher at Hamilton Elementary School in Schenectady, New York.
The qualities that Keough’s colleagues, students, and families cited when they nominated her for her district’s Teacher of the Year award also helped her stand out for the statewide recognition: the work she puts into connecting with students’ parents and other caregivers; her knowledge of and commitment to trauma-sensitive practices; her involvement in a renewed, active PTO, and her effort to incorporate literacy in all subject areas.
This academic year, Keough will serve as an ambassador for New York’s teachers. She will be the state’s nominee for the National Teacher of the Year, to be announced in spring 2025.
Read more about Keough’s State Teacher of the Year award in the announcement from the New York State Education Department and learn how Russell Sage prepared her to make a difference in her classroom and community in this Sage.edu profile of Keough from spring 2024, shortly after she received the Robert Ludwig Schenectady School District Teacher of the Year award.
Keough is the most recent of three graduates from Russell Sage College’s Esteves School of Education who have received statewide honors in their field since 2023.
Carla Young, a middle school counselor in the Bethlehem Central School District and graduate of RSC’s M.S. in Professional School Counseling program, was the New York State School Counseling Association’s 2023 School Counselor of the Year, and Zaquan Irby, a physical education teacher and coach at Shaker High School and graduate of RSC’s B.S. in Physical Education and M.S. in School Health Education programs, was named New York State’s Strength Coach of the Year by the National High School Strength Coaches Association in 2023.