GREGORY HOENIG/WTE Anderson Elementary first-grade teacher Janet Gronski smiles as her colleagues applaud during an assembly in which her selection as the 2008 Laramie County School District 1 Teacher of The Year was announced.

borr@wyomingnews.com

CHEYENNE - It's drizzling outside Anderson Elementary as gray clouds carry the promise of a downpour.

But it's summer inside Janet Gronski's classroom.

There are bright posters on the walls. A blue word wall with letters of the alphabet is tacked on one wall.

Colorful paper mobiles made by the children hang from the lights.

The sunny scene reflects her positive feelings about teaching. Gronski, 52, has taught for 30 years.

Now she is the 2008 Teacher of the Year for Laramie County School District 1.

Shortly before school ends Monday, Anderson Elementary Principal Jim Fraley calls an assembly, where he announces that Gronski has won the award.

Children and employees clap and cheer. Many students come up to her afterward and hug her. She takes time to hug them back and call them by name.

"I've always wanted to be a teacher," Gronski says after school. There are lots of aunts and uncles in the profession, she says.

Gronski has a bachelor's degree in special education with a minor in elementary education from the University of Wyoming. She earned a master's degree in teaching from Grand Canyon University.

She started her career in 1977 as a special education teacher at Pineview Elementary in Casper. She taught for 22 years in Casper.

When she came to Cheyenne, she was the Title I reading teacher at Hebard Elementary. She taught reading in a program called CLIP at both Jessup and Anderson elementary schools.

This is her seventh year teaching first grade at Anderson Elementary. She has taught first grade for a total of 17 years in her career.

She and her husband, Michael, have two sons and a daughter, all grown.

Teaching is the right job for her. "To me, it's one of the most rewarding experiences," she says. In the first grade, children begin the year basically as non-readers. Then, over the course of the school year, they learn how to read.

"It's such a short span of time," she says. "They work so hard. It's their excitement, their journey that keeps me on the ball. They love school."

Children are enthused about school, she says. She remembers what one little boy told her after he returned from Christmas break.

"Last year, one of my little boys said he couldn't wait to get back" and read, she says. He had grown bored with TV and Nintendo, she says and laughs.

She learned from reading recovery programs why children make the mistakes they do in reading and learned ways to help them.

Gronski is a member of the Reading Recovery Council of North America and the International Reading Association.

Fraley knew her when he was a teacher. "I respected her a lot for her opinions." She taught one of the reading classes he took, he says, and is a teacher-leader.

For example, on Monday after school, she taught teachers how to instruct a guided reading class.

"You knew she knew a lot in her job as a reading specialist," Fraley says. "She's a phenomenal reading teacher."

Teaching is about helping children become all they can, Gronski says. "It's not about test scores. It's about kids."