Mount Vernon, VA, June 25, 2026 – George Washington's Mount Vernon has awarded the 2026 History Teacher of the Year to Mollie Safran, a U.S. history teacher from Lightridge High School part of Loudoun County Public Schools in Aldie, VA.
The Mount Vernon History Teacher of the Year Award is presented annually to one history or social studies teacher in the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan area who teaches with creativity and passion, instills a love of learning in students, and deepens students’ understanding and appreciation of history. The award winner receives a cash award of $5,000 and a fully-funded field trip to Mount Vernon for their students.
As an educator on the team-taught Special Education and the team-taught English Language Learners sections of U.S. History, Ms. Safran is committed to making history available and understandable to each one of her students. Following the teacher philosophy of Inquiry-Centered Instruction, Nuanced Historical Understanding, and Equitable access to High Rigor, she is adamant that her English Language Learners should be presented with advanced reading levels so as to positively impact their capacity to analyze complex historical documents.
Ms. Safran encourages her students to think critically about each topic, with one student writing: “I used to think there was one right answer in history class, but now I think that how you understand history changes based on how you interpret it.” She constantly strives for her students to not just “learn history”, but “learn like historians.”
Outside of teaching in the classroom, Ms. Safran is the coach of the Speech & Debate, Mock Trial, and Model UN teams where she fosters a famously magnanimous space, teaching students to voice their opinions in a pointed and civil manner. Today the Model UN team has over 190 members, the largest in Northern Virginia.
Ms. Safran has built strong partnerships between her classroom and cultural institutions, including developing professional learning experiences for educators as the working group leader for the D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice, where she leads monthly convenings for teachers in the region to create social justice-centered curriculum. She also regularly presents at national and regional conferences, sharing her own strategies and expertise with other teachers.
A photograph of Mollie Safran is available here.
This year's runner up is Giani Clarkson, a government teacher at Washington Leadership Academy in Washington, D.C. – as the runner-up, Mr. Clarkson will receive a $500 cash reward.
This year marks the 18th anniversary of the Mount Vernon History Teacher of the Year award, made possible by generous support from the Robertson Foundation. The award review panel is composed of Mount Vernon education staff who design programming and resources for K-12 students and teachers to further support Mount Vernon’s mission and vision in schools across the country.
