Health and physical education teacher Fran Siedlecki has been named Seneca High School’s 2015–2016 teacher of the year.
After graduating from Glassboro State College, now Rowan University, in 1981, Siedlecki took a job as a craps dealer at the Claridge Hotel and Casino. After working at the casino and substituting at area schools, she took a temporary maternity leave position in 1984 at Shawnee High School where she taught freshman and sophomore physical education along with driver’s education. Shawnee began to build a new addition that fall and needed to hire additional staff leading to Siedlecki being offered a full-time health and physical education position. She continued instructing and coaching there for the next nineteen years teaching mostly sophomore physical education and driver’s education. While at Shawnee, Siedlecki took over the head tennis coach position in 1986 and the head track coach position in 1988. She continued as the head coach in both sports until she left for Seneca in 2003. Both teams experienced success under Siedlecki with the track team winning a state championship in 1999.
In the fall of 2003, Siedlecki took her energy and excitement to the Lenape Regional High School District’s newest school, Seneca. The track team was amazingly successful having captured two back-to-back state championships in 2009 and 2010. Siedlecki continued to teach and coach at Seneca until she resigned from coaching tennis in 2009 and track in 2011.
There have been many awards bestowed upon Fran over the last 31 years of teaching and coaching but this one is special to Siedlecki said.
“Hands down being awarded the teacher of the year by my fellow co-workers makes my commitment to education that much more rewarding. This award is really not about me but rather about all the students that I have been blessed to teach and been able to offer an appreciation for education, our great school system and culture, opportunity, advancement and success,” Siedlecki said.
The school’s previous winners are: Gary Williams, science 2004–2005; Nancy Stapleford, social studies 2005–2006; Gail Griffin, math 2006–2007; Ron Jensen, social studies 2007–2008; Lisa Berezansky, science 2008–2009; Elizabeth Strittmatter, English 2009–2010; Sandy Langan, special education 2010–2011; Tracy Betts, English 2011–2012; Greg Bauer, science 2012–2013; Rich Watson, science 2013–2014 and Dave Knecht, english 2014–2015.
