Buendorf is one of 30 to move on for Minnesota Teacher of the Year

Albert Lea teacher Paula Buendorf is one of 30 semifinalists for Minnesota Teacher of the Year.

Buendorf, who was the 2014 Albert Lea Teacher of the Year and teaches special education at Southwest Middle School, has been teaching in Albert Lea for 18 years. She is originally from Crookston and lives with her husband and two sons — Mason, 10, and Henry, 8 — on a farm.

Buendorf was originally one of 123 teachers nominated for Minnesota Teacher of the Year on Feb. 3.

A 24-person panel selected the 30 semifinalists from the original pool of teachers. The panel will meet again in March to select 10 finalists from the group of semifinalists.

The 2014 Minnesota Teacher of the Year — Tom Rademacher, a high school English teacher at the FAIR School Downtown in the West Metro Education Program — will announce the 2015 Minnesota Teacher of the Year at a banquet on May 3 at the Radisson Blu Mall of America hotel.

Education Minnesota, the 70,000-member statewide educators union, organizes and underwrites the Teacher of the Year program. Candidates include pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers from public or private schools. The Minnesota Teacher of the Year Program also receives support from the SMARTer Kids Foundation, the Radisson Blu Mall of America, the Harvard Club of Minnesota Foundation, United Educators Credit Union, McDonald’s Restaurants of Minnesota, TruStone Financial and Education Minnesota ESI.