Amber Funderburgh
Amber Funderburgh is a stand-out educator worthy of distinction. She possesses a wealth of knowledge and experience from a career that has spanned 7th grade ELA to English ll. She has served as a PLC team lead, a district curriculum design team member, and a teacher mentor for her district's inaugural Learning Leaders program. Amber regularly volunteers to share her knowledge with her peers by presenting at district meetings, institutes, and the NCTE national conference.
A large part of her students' successes are due to her passion for writing pedagogy. Amber has co-directed the Heart of Texas Writing Project out of The University of Texas at Austin for many years. She also runs the Leander Writes Institute for teachers of Leander ISD where she leads to cohorts per year.
More important than Amber's leadership roles, she creates a classroom environment that welcomes all students. Her room is filled with books, anchor charts, and student work. She honors her classroom of readers and writers by providing engaging learning experiences within a workshop structure.
Her unwavering belief in students and their learning draws like-minded colleagues to her. At every school, she has advocated for the professional development of her colleagues, for administrators to give decision-making power to the classroom teachers who know students best, and for teachers' knowledge and experience to be recognized.