Mrs. Lori Mertes has been a special education teacher for over 30 years. She has worked at AWE for eight of those years as an Early Learning Teacher. She has worked in three other schools in the district as a Resource Teacher in both primary and intermediate grades. 

Mrs. Mertes has been married for 37 years to her husband Michael and has four grown children, two of which live out of state and country.

Ms. Mertes enjoys camping, photography, cooking, fly fishing, and sewing. She especially likes taking drives on the weekends to take pictures of our beautiful state of Alaska.