Amy T. Andersen, NBCT is a high school American Sign Language (ASL) teacher at Ocean City High School in the Ocean City School District. She earned a bachelor’s degree in flute performance from Indiana University and a master’s degree in deaf education from McDaniel College. Amy also achieved National Board Certification in Exceptional Needs Specialist: Deaf/Hard of Hearing. After nine years in Boston, Massachusetts as a teacher of the deaf, she returned to New Jersey in 2004 to raise a family. It was then, with 42 students, that Amy T. Andersen began the American Sign Language (ASL) program at Ocean City High School. It has since grown to 130 students under her tutelage. Amy T. Andersen is a nationally recognized educator who began her career teaching deaf children to fall in love with reading. She now teaches hearing children to fall in love with ASL. Among her many recognitions, Amy T. Andersen was named the 2014 ASL Teacher of the Year and was honored by the New Jersey Association for the Deaf and Atlantic County Society for the Deaf. In 2015, “Classroom Close-Up NJ” highlighted her program after her students’ ASL anti-bullying video went viral. As Ocean City High School’s Teacher of the Year, Amy T. Andersen was featured in the New Jersey School Board Association’s School Leader and was recently honored by the National Liberty Museum with the Teacher as Hero: Exceptional Teacher Award. Andersen is the 2017-18 New Jersey State Teacher of the Year and is currently in the running for National Teacher of the Year.
Our Difference is Our Strength
February 6, 2018
When I was seven years old, my mother took me with her to a sign language class two nights a week. I remember immediately connecting with signing and practicing all the time – I loved those classes. Things changed once I entered grade school. I started playing the flute and the more I practiced, the better I seemed to get. Although that instant connection to signing never left, my focus became music and I committed to becoming the best I could be. By high school, I was going to Philadelphia every weekend for private lessons and woodwind quintet rehearsal, even…
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