NAME:
Karen Johns
SCHOOL:
Lakeview Elementary School
CLASS:
K-5 Music Education
SCHOOL PHONE:
941-361-6571
Mrs. Johns is very pleased to have been teaching music in Sarasota County
schools for twenty-one years, and this is her eighth year at Lakeview. She is
a National Board Certified Teacher and mentors new teachers. She has
adjudicated All-State Elementary Chorus auditions and has directed county-
wide music festivals. She is Coordinator of the Steering Committee of the
Community/Schools Partnership for the Arts (C/SPA), an advisory committee to
the Superintendent of Sarasota County Schools. She is the proud wife of
Stephen Johns, who directs Venice High School's choral programs and also
conducts Exsultate! Venice's professional-grade chorus. Mrs. Johns is the
proud mother of three wonderful children and is a very happy grandmother.
Before becoming a public school teacher, Mrs. Johns worked as a music
therapist and administrator with Department of Health and Rehabilitative
Services facilities in North Florida. She has served on the state board of
Florida Music Educators Association and has worked as a consultant for
teacher inservice training in the areas of music education for children with
special needs.
Mrs. Johns has specialized training in facilitation and leadership from the
Florida Department of Education and from the Creative Problem Solving
Institute at the University of New York (SUNY) in Buffalo. She and her
husband have taken high school students to tour Europe with the Florida
Ambassadors of Music and also to New York several times to sing at Carnegie
Hall. She has a strong passion for working to make sure that every single
child has a balanced curriculum, including continuous access to high quality
arts education courses.
Mrs. Johns is honored to have been chosen the Sarasota County 2011 Elementary
Teacher of the Year, but her greatest occupational enjoyment comes from
directing Lakeview's comprehensive music education program, which includes K-
5 General Music classes, 3rd Grade Advanced Recorder Ensemble, 4th/5th Grade
Chorus, and facilitating Lakeview's Violin ensembles and performing
opportunities for every Lakeview student. She can be reached at the
following email address and would be happy to hear from you.
karen_johns@sarasota.k12.fl.us
To support the intellectual and creative maturity of children by helping them:
*develop and use their musical talents.
*increase their verbal, emotional, & spatial intelligences.
*improve their abilities to concentrate and remember.
*inspire right-brain creative thinking processes.
*increase body movement opportunities & coordination skills.
*enhance mood, motivation and pacing abilities.
*strengthen intuitive thinking skills.
*better understand the passage of time, historical
and cultural events.
*set goals and persevere to reach them.
*learn to cooperate thru participation in performing arts.
*realize and substantiate their own opinions.
*value and show respect for the opinions of others.
*find safe, constructive, enjoyable ways to use their time.
"LEARNING IS GOOD. LEARNING TO LEARN IS BETTER. LOVING TO LEARN IS BEST.
THE PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE NECESSITATES A CONSTANT STRUGGLE AGAINST
MEDIOCRITY." - Frank T. Brogan, Florida Commissioner of Education,
in his January 8, 1998, keynote address to the Florida Music Educators
Association
