Shawna Monique Fantauzzi (1976 - 2008)

Recently our community lost a lovely young woman and aspiring teacher, Shawna Fantauzzi. Shawna was a beautiful and devoted mother, daughter, sister, and friend. On June 5th, 2008, Shawna was found dead in her home from causes unknown.  This tragic loss has affected those in our education community very deeply.

Shawna experienced some very profound personal challenges during the last few years of her young life. Some of these challenges included the death of close family members as well as her own personal trauma.  Despite these profound set backs, Shawna gave tremendous things to her community. She was a performing singer. She was a poet. She worked hard to raise her young daughter to be a good person and strong student. She was an inspiring role model for the young people who attended the schools where she worked; her compassion and kindness were evident in all she did.

Since she was an aspiring teacher, Shawna served schools and education organizations in her community. She was a dedicated administrative assistant for five years at P.S.1 Charter School. In addition, Shawna had worked as a teacher in a school-based culinary program that served students who struggled in their lives and in found school to be a challenging plance.  In addition, she worked as an informational specialist for a city-funded program called the Youth Employment Academy that served metro area youth in gaining workplace skills.

Recenty,  Shawna had decided to become a special education teacher.  To do this, she was pursuing positions as a paraprofessional teacher and exploring univerity programs to complete her BA so that she could continue on to get her teaching license. Once she came within a year of her BA, she was eligible for a Transition to Teaching grant that was available to her through a Federal grant that MHM Educational Services, LLC administers. Due to her untimely death, she was unable to realize her dream.

IInspired by who Shawna was in her short life and who she aspired to be, MHM Educational Services, LLC and The Teacher Institute at La Academia are now offering the Shawna Fanatuzzi Aspiring Teacher Award in her memory.

Since we were unable to support Shawna to become a teacher due to her early and tragic departure from this life, MHM and TILA would like to support other candidates showing the qualities and attributes that Shawna offered the world in their quest to become a teacher.

MHM sees the following as required attributes in order to qualify for the Shawna Fanatuzzi Aspiring Teacher Award :

Resilience
Courage
Humor
Dedication for underserved population
Ability to love children unconditionally
Compassion
Passion
Desire to serve youth who struggle 

If you would like to know more about the Shawna Fanatuzzi Aspiring Teacher Award or apply, please contact Rebekah Cordova at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it