Anne Marie Willis

* Ashlawn Elementary School teacher Anne Willis recently was honored with a 2002 Linowes Leadership Award from the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region.The award honors educators who "demonstrated outstanding commitment to improving the quality of life in the region."

Carmen L. Fernandez and Anne Willis will each receive a Linowes Leadership Award at ceremonies on Thursday, June 13, at the Community Foundation's headquarters at the National Association of Home Builders in Washington, D.C.
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Anne Willis is a pioneer in the field of special education.A special-education preschool teacher at Ashlawn Elementary, for the past three decades, she has devoted her life to the community's most disabled and hard-to-reach children, those with severe brain damage, profound mental retardation and crippling physical disabilities, many of whom are unable to communicate.Her innovative toddler program, designed to give the youngest special-needs kids a good start and lay the foundation for mainstreaming them into the regular classroom, set the standard for such classes elsewhere, and today every elementary school in Arlington County has a special-needs preschool.In the 1970s, she adopted a 10-year-old child with mental retardation, becoming the first single woman to legally adopt a child in the state of Virginia.

Anne Marie WillisSpecial Education Preschool Teacher Ashlawn Elementary School