Lisa Ingram-Ummel

Lisa Ummel-Ingram is a sixth grade English Language Arts teacher at Wheeler Middle School.  Prior to teaching, she served in the United States Air Force for eleven years and began her military career in personnel management. Her most rewarding duties involved training “new troops”.  She loved the feeling of accomplishment as new personnel progressed in their on-the-job training.  As a result, she was inspired to teach and began to take education classes as electives as she neared completion of a bachelor’s degree in business and management while in the Air Force.  

Upon leaving the Air Force, she completed a master’s degree in elementary education at Oklahoma City University.  Following graduation, she began teaching fourth grade at Wheeler Elementary.  She has taught third through eighth grades in her 29 years in the district.  She credits the energy and enthusiasm of a high school business education teacher for her eventual teaching philosophy.  As an extremely shy young girl, she connected with the teacher who saw a future for her that she could not see.  She is motivated to be that teacher for her students.  Along with having high performance standards and a tough love attitude about behavioral expectations, her goal is to convey to her students that they are worth the hard work it takes to be successful.

Lisa is a twice renewed National Board Certified teacher who is committed to providing her students with an environment in which they can grow academically and acquire meaningful habits of mind that will serve them well in life.  She shares a love of reading and writing with her students, and has built much of her teaching toolbox on the tenants of the National Writing Project’s and the Oklahoma State University Writing Project’s goal of improving the teaching and learning of writing in classrooms.  

In addition to her teaching duties, Lisa is also passionate about being a teacher leader and supporting both new and experienced teachers.  She serves as the sixth grade team leader, English Language Arts department chair, new teacher mentor, and as an adjunct professor where she mentors aspiring English education majors through their Methods of Teaching English course at Oklahoma City University.  

Throughout her career, Lisa has touched the lives of countless students and colleagues and has benefited greatly from being a small part of their lives.