Vernon’s 2025 Teacher of the Year is Jennifer Roggi, a math teacher at Vernon Center Middle School who demands as much of herself as she does of her students, is mindful of the challenges middle schoolers face, and works to be supportive and compassionate and challenges them to be their best selves.
Roggi knew she’d been nominated as Vernon’s Teacher of the Year, but was shocked when she learned she’d been selected.
“There are many great teachers in Vernon,” she said. “My two sons have gone through this district and there are so many worthy recipients.”
Vernon Center Middle School Principal David Caruso wasn’t surprised. “Jen is always looking for ways to help kids, in or out of the classroom,” he said. “If you’re starting a middle school, she is someone you want on your team. She is really good with the kids.”
“Jen Roggi exemplifies the Vernon teacher,” added Superintendent of Schools Dr. Joseph P. Macary. “She’s hard working, committed to excellence and dedicated to students.”
Her colleagues at VCMS also heap praise on Roggi, some of whom view her as a role model.
“Jennifer consistently goes above and beyond for students, creating a classroom environment that is both engaging, rigorous and thoughtful, fostering a love of learning in every student,” VCMS math teacher Sheila Murchison wrote in her nomination of Roggi. “She is always looking for innovative teaching ideas and methods to use in her classroom, offers after-school support, and listens to and encourages each student.”
Another colleague, Teresa Blizman-Schmitt, said Roggi keeps seeking new ways to teach and is an important and supportive figure at VCMS.
“Jen has everything we hope for in an educator: expertise, compassion, resilience, a relentless belief in the potential of every student and faith in all of us.” Blizman-Schmitt said. “Her ability to nurture students, colleagues and friends makes her a pillar in our Vernon community.”
Roggi comes from a family of educators and teaching, she said, is in her DNA. Her mother was a teacher, her father was a teacher then a school superintendent and her brother is a college professor.
When she graduated from college, she taught for several years, then took a break to raise her boys. When she decided to go back to work, she wanted to teach math in middle school. The right opportunity presented itself at Vernon Center Middle School. That she lived in Vernon was a bonus.
“My middle school experience was rough,” Roggi said. “I felt like I could make it better for some students and help them get through this sort of weird transition time where they are not quite high schoolers, but they’re not elementary schoolers either. There are a lot of physical changes going on that impact their learning. I wanted to be a support to them and help them get through middle school and thrive. That is my passion, to really make it a different experience for kids.”
Roggi teaches a range of students – those struggling to master basic math concepts and those so advanced they are taking high school-level algebra 1 as eighth graders. Getting students to understand that math isn’t always easy is important. It helps students realize that learning takes hard work and perseverance, she said, and that they should expect and embrace mistakes and use them to revise their thinking and try again. That is the learning process.
“Some students think they’re not good at math because they didn’t get an 80 or a 90 on a test,” she said. But there are other measures students can use to get a better sense of their progress in math class. Roggi, as part of her work in the UConn Noyce Math Leader program, is working to help students see and understand those other measures in order to become learners and more importantly doers of mathematics.
When students are shown evidence that highlights their growth and work habits, they take ownership of their own learning and take pride in their progress, she said. It helps dispel the notion that they are not good at math.
“Anything new is difficult,” Roggi said. “Math should be difficult. Everything new is supposed to be hard, until you get it. Then you move on to something else new.”
Roggi said she was surprised and humbled to learn that her commitment to continual learning, to her students and to the entire school community, has been influential to colleagues.
“I wasn’t aware my work with the students would float over to the professionals that I work with and that I would be viewed as an example,” she said. “It did help me to realize we impact more than just the students when we are teachers. Whatever you do impacts the staff and the community. It has elevated that sense of responsibility.”
Roggi is known among her coworkers as being someone they can count on. She is always the first one to volunteer a helping hand, and over the years she has also taken on multiple leadership roles. She has been a team leader and math department chair, Math Counts coach and a chaperone on VCMS’s annual Bermuda Workshop.
Roggi said she loves teaching in Vernon because of the impact the district has had on her family and all that Vernon has to offer, including a diverse student population.
“I love the diversity – not just racial diversity – but the experiential diversity, the socio-economic diversity,” she said. “Working in a middle school, you have to be aware that there are students here who have grown up with a lot available to them but there are students who have not been afforded the same opportunities and experiences.”
She said she loves bringing those students together to work with each other on projects so that they get to know each other and experience working with others on a common goal.
“When I first started doing it, I was shocked how many of them did not know each other’s names,” Roggi said. “They’d been in school together, but they just had gravitated toward their friends and had not developed relationships with other people.”
Most of all, Roggi said she treasures helping students learn, succeed and develop life skills.
“As teachers, we don’t just fill their heads with knowledge; we teach them skills, give them opportunities, and teach them how to analyze their own strengths and weaknesses and continue learning,” she said. “A teacher’s job is to be a mentor, a guide, a counselor. And to be attuned to students’ needs.”