Alumna looks to pay education, support forward for future generations

For as long as she can remember, Anna Panek Allen has wanted to be a teacher.

“When I was younger, I thought teachers were super cool and they knew everything. I’ve since learned that’s not the case, especially as a teacher myself. But when I was in high school, I realized a lot of my friends didn’t have the support at home that I did, and that a lot of them found their safety and their support at school,” she said. “I thought that was cool, and I really looked up to those people. I knew that not everyone is going to be a star basketball player or president one day, but you could have a good impact. And so I wanted to be a teacher.”

Panek Allen started volunteering with the tutoring program at her high school and quickly noticed that most students were looking for help with either Spanish or mathematics. That realization helped her choose which areas she’d focus in later in college.

“I always liked school; that's just kind of my mindset. I know sometimes the education system caters to certain individuals, but that was me and I really loved it and so I wanted to be in that,” she said. “But I also wanted to change what education looked like for the other 90 percent that the traditional system is not designed for.”

Panek Allen attended St. Cloud State University, earning her bachelor’s in mathematics education as well as in Spanish teaching in 2022. She also minored in special education and earned a certificate in technology education. She is currently working on her master’s in educational leadership and technology from SCSU, expecting to have it finished in December 2024.

“I realized my bachelor’s was just the starting-off point. It got me in the door of teaching, but I was really passionate about some things that I didn't get to really look into during my undergrad. So my master’s focus is on equal practices in general. I first started with talking about IEPs (individual education plans) and 504s — those special plans for students and specifically the accommodations and modifications we make for them, and the benefit they have. I’ve also looked into our multilingual learners and the extra supports that they have, and it's amazing that the support we offer them, we don’t offer to everyone. Because the support we offer them is really, truly helpful for all of them, and so the idea that we can offer those modifications just changes our teaching in general, not just for the specific few, and how those specifically relate to that identity piece. Finding the connection between the identity people have as doers of math and as learners in general; I’m hoping to spread that out. We'll connect with those philosophies just to change our education system from serving the 10 percent to serving 90.”

When considering schools for both her bachelor’s and master’s programs, Panek Allen said SCSU was the clear choice.

“In researching, St. Cloud State has had the best education program for over a century, so if you want to be teacher, St. Cloud State is the place to be. I thought that was really cool. St. Cloud State also has some of larger number of student organizations on campus compared to lots of other universities of the similar level.”

SCSU’s study abroad programs were also a draw for Panek Allen, and she ended up studying in four different countries her freshman year.

“Later on, I realized there were more benefits. I got a lot of work. I was a learning assistant — which doesn't happen at a lot of other universities — so I got a lot of education training on campus that also helped pay for my tuition,” she said. “I worked a lot with St. Cloud Area School District, connecting that way, and some volunteering. There's a lot of community partnerships that I wasn’t aware of. I know the universities in the area really market the community feel, but I really think St. Cloud State has a lot more of those connections than a lot of people are aware of.”

While on campus for her undergraduate program, she was a member of the Future Educators Club; was a writer, editor and managing editor for the University Chronicle student newspaper; was involved with community volunteering through the National Society of Leadership and Success; and was involved with the tutoring and learning system programs.

After finishing her bachelor’s, Panek Allen started her career as a long-term math substitute for St. Cloud Tech High School, and has now been teaching high school math — primarily freshman-level nonlinear algebra and junior-level algebra 2 — for the ROCORI School District for about two years. She credits her time at SCSU with giving her a solid foundation in the education field.

“What I really liked is SCSU worked on getting you in the classroom as much as possible and at an early stage in our learning. That was really powerful,” she said. “What is special about SCSU is they take everybody and they recognize what’s good in everybody and help them get from where they are to where they want to be.”

It’s Panek Allen’s hope to inspire that in her own students as well as her fellow teachers.

“My goal is to simply be a better teacher every day than I was the day before, which sometimes is harder than it sounds. I hope I encourage other students to become teachers one day. Right now we have a big shortage of teachers and I hope that I talk positively enough about teaching and also make them realize how much I do love my job. It's amazing how many of my peers or my colleagues from high school are not happy going to work every day,” she said. “I’m excited to go to work every day, so I hope I get more kids involved and excited about teaching. I hope that I can inspire my kids to be mathematicians, but also make some change in my department but also in education as a whole. I've been more involved at the state level for math teachers and I'm trying to get more involved at the national level. There's a lot of great research and a lot of great people who are talking about best practices, but it's really hard to get those in action if we're not giving time for teachers to learn those.”

Philanthropy as well her connections with professors and different organizations on campus have played a significant role in her success both during and after her time at SCSU.

“I relied on scholarships to get through college like most people do. For my background: my mom passed away when I was 15, and so I came from a single-income household going into college. My dad was a blue-collar worker his whole life, and I make more now as a teacher than he ever did in his lifetime working,” Panek Allen said. “That support allowed me to focus on my schooling without having to work. I know a lot of my peers had to take less credits because they couldn’t get that support. I also was able to stay closer to campus and could be involved in more organizations and that was really beneficial. If I didn’t have those connections with the professors through the orgs, I might not have had as many opportunities post-college as well.”

The support she has received throughout her education is something Panek Allen intends to pay forward in the future.

“I feel very blessed and I’m excited to see what I can do in the future for other students. The power of philanthropy is to invest in the future, to give students now an opportunity that you didn’t have," she said. "For example: I want more people to be teachers, especially people of color from diverse backgrounds. I hope to use my philanthropy in the future to give those students more of an opportunity. Additionally, there are so many barriers to becoming a teacher, especially if someone's coming from a lower socioeconomic background. If we can help them remove barriers to becoming a teacher, that means a better education system for our kids, but also for society as a whole.”