Janet Damon teaches history at DELTA High School and has taught in Denver Public Schools for more than 25 years as a history teacher, literacy interventionist, library specialist and trainer, and a K-12 school librarian.

Her lessons focus on inquiry, research, digital storytelling and culturally sustaining learning. Students create solutions to problems in the state and create podcasts to advocate for issues such as homelessness, gun violence, incarceration, inflation, immigration, racism, health disparities and drug addiction in Colorado.

Her organization, Afros and Books, supports equitable access to books in marginalized communities. Through family reading adventures in the Colorado outdoors, youth engage in hiking, kayaking, archery, yoga, fly–fishing and birding while receiving new books for summer reading. She is also a licensed yoga instructor who weaves mindfulness and meditation into her outreach with youth and families.

Damon has been awarded the Colorado Teacher of the Year 2025, CorePower Yoga Teacher Scholarship 2024, Extraordinary Teacher Award from Suntec Concrete in 2024, the African Americans Who Are Making a Difference Award in 2023, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award in 2022, the inaugural Making Our Futures Brighter Award in 2022, the Library Journal Mover and Shaker Award 2020, Facing History fellowship and Fund for Teachers fellowship. Damon earned her Bachelor of Arts in history from Metropolitan State University, master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Denver and educational specialist’s degree in leadership for educational organizations from the University of Colorado at Denver.