Precollege Education Committee (PEC)

2006 PEC Teacher-Engineer Partnership Award Winners

IEEE-USA's Precollege Education Committee is proud to present the fourth winning team of the IEEE-USA Teacher-Engineer Partnership Award, Joy Huebel (educator) and Renato Recio (engineer) from Austin, Texas (Region 5). Huebel and Recio won for collaborative long-term promotion of technological education at River Oaks Elementary School.

Huebel and Recio’s partnership started in 2002 with Recio holding face-to-face mentoring sessions with students at the River Oaks Elementary School where Huebel is the principal. The mentoring sessions evolved into the Partners in Education (PiE) tutoring program which increased the number of mentors that participated in the mentoring program as well as the number of students reached. The initial goal was to offer Hispanic role models for students and to tutor students in science and math, but has grown to include black students as well. Since the inception of the PiE program, the scores for the Teaxas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills Test (TAKS) have improved at River Oaks Elementary. The program continues to grow to include a day long program where engineers and students are paired up to discuss how science and math are used in the everyday working world of engineers.

Their award was presented at the IEEE-USA Award Banquet and Ceremony held in conjunction with the IEEE-USA Annual Meeting on 2 September 2007 in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Updated: 25 May 2010
Contact: Sandra Kim, sandra.kim@ieee.org