Amanda Ramirez Email & Phone Number

My name is Amanda Ramirez, and this is my seventeenth year teaching for Avon Community Schools.  I grew up south of Indianapolis in Shelby County.  As a junior and senior, I attended the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities, and that is where I first started learning Japanese.  It was also the first time I was outside of the bubble of the farming community I grew up in. I was an honors student at Ball State University, and studied on exchange at Sapporo University in Hokkaido, Japan. I worked  full-time during college in addition to taking a full schedule of courses until I started student teaching at Hamilton Southeastern Schools. I began teaching at Avon after I graduated in 2008. I live in Avon with my husband, son, and our many pets. My husband works with the marching band and drumlines at Avon.         The Japanese program was brand new when I started at Avon, so I've been responsible for writing the curriculum for each level of Japanese since the beginning of the program. In that time we've gone from one level to five levels, and have grown to be one of the largest Japanese programs in the state, as well as one of the largest chapters of Japanese National Honor Society in the country. Outside of the classroom, I am a member of several professional organizations. Recently, I served as president of the Indiana Foreign Language Teachers Association,  and was responsible for organizing a 3-day conference for approximately 600 World Language teachers in Indiana. I am a member of the Central States Advisory Council, the regional organization that serves World Language educators in 14 states of the Midwest. I served as the Program Chair for the 2023, responsible for organizing the annual regional conference. I currently serve on the ACTFL board as the Central States Delegate. I have also served on various committees for the development of teacher licensing tests and the Indiana Academic Standards for World Language. While I am very invested in collaborating with colleagues, linguistics, and pedagogical research, I am most passionate about intercultural competence and working towards a more equitable and engaging environment for all students and their unique educational needs.

Listed skills include Conferences, Teaching, Staff Development, Curriculum, and 6 others.