Abby Zwerner

Zwerner's record is a legal one rather than an awards shelf. The $10 million civil verdict returned in November 2024 is the largest documented outcome of her case, and it came from a jury that heard her account of warnings passed to administrators before the shooting. She has also been cited repeatedly by teachers' groups and school safety advocates as an example of a classroom employee who raised concerns and was not heard, though no formal honor from those groups appears in the record. Her standing rests on testimony given under oath in two proceedings and on the fact that she got her students out of the room while wounded.