Jan. 10, 2026
By Farah Afifi
Editor
After two decades serving the LHS community, geometry teacher Ms. Smietana is being honored as the high school’s 2025-2026 Governor’s Educator of the Year.
This award, which goes to the teacher who receives the most nominations from LHS’ personnel, acknowledges a faculty member who consistently demonstrates dedication, inspires students and makes a difference in their lives.
“It’s really a humbling award,” Smietana said. “There’s so much work that goes into every single day as a teacher…. It’s nice to be recognized, especially by my colleagues, to see all that hard work has been noticeable.”
Smietana, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree from William Paterson University in Wayne and has earned 30 postgraduate credits from the University of La Verne in La Verne, California, began her career at LHS in 2006 as a student teacher, before joining the faculty in 2007. Then, in 2010, she became the co-advisor of the National Honor Society.
Smietana said that of all her responsibilities at LHS, teaching is her favorite.
“It all comes down to that moment where we’re all together, and we’re learning something new,” Smietana said. “Seeing someone who has struggled or hasn’t gotten something and it just clicks — that ‘aha’ moment, it’s one of the best things in the world.”
Smietana said the qualities she is most proud of as an educator are the standards she upholds in her teaching practices.
“I’m not perfect by any means, but I do try to be as fair as possible to all my students. If I do say or have something set in place, I’m going to be consistent with it,” Smietana said.
Italian teacher Signor Raguseo said Smietana’s award is well-deserved.
“As long as I’ve been teaching here, which is over 10 years now, she’s been the same dedicated professional,” Raguseo said. “She’s wise, honest, dependable and overall a person with a great moral compass. She always wants to do the right thing for herself, for her students, her school and her colleagues.”
Raguseo said he admires Smietana for the enthusiasm she has maintained throughout her career.
“She’s still going above and beyond,” Raguseo said. “She’s nonstop with preparing for her lessons. That includes materials, grading and offering feedback to her students.”
Raguseo said he respects Smietana for always offering assistance.
“[She is] staying after school for extra help and sometimes giving up her lunch to do that. In fact, a lot of times, I feel that she’s rushing to eat lunch before our lunch period ends because she spent a good portion of it helping her students,” Raguseo said.
Sophomore Michael Quintero, who had Smietana as his Geometry Honors teacher during his freshman year, said he appreciated her dedication.
“Every day, she would just, no matter what, always have that energy and drive to teach everyone. She would be very loud and passionate about lines, shapes and everything,” Quintero said.
“Seeing someone who has struggled or hasn’t gotten something and it just clicks — that ‘aha’ moment, it’s one of the best things in the world.”
He said Smietana’s best quality is her patience, as she was willing to go through her lessons slowly to ensure all her students understood the material.
“She made it… a nice environment for people not to feel dumb asking… any questions that they want if they don’t understand something,” Quintero said.
Junior Christina Mizeski, an NHS member who also took Smietana’s Geometry Honors class during her freshman year, said Smietana broke down hard concepts in a way that made them seem easy and gave students many opportunities to understand the material.
“She was really on top of you if you were lagging behind, and she made sure you caught up,” Mizeski said. “Her class was very structured because we worked from bell to bell.”
Mizeski said Smietana is worthy of the Governor’s Educator of the Year Award because of the success she has helped her students achieve.
“The way she explains things, they make total sense, even though geometry isn’t the easiest,” Mizeski said. “She puts so much effort into her class every single day, and she’s very consistent. She’s just a really good teacher.”
