10 Teachers Receive Escalante Awards

Ten area teachers were honored Thursday with Jaime Escalante Mathematics Teacher Awards, designed to recognize those who motivate their students to excel in math.

The awards program was established in 1989 by the Los Angeles Educational Partnership, a business consortium working to improve education. The awards are funded by ARCO and named after the nationally renowned Garfield High School calculus teacher who inspired his minority, disadvantaged students to become high achievers.

Recipients, who were nominated by current and former students, were Grace Hutchins of Northridge Junior High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District, Chris Mansfield of William S. Hart High School in the Hart Union High School District in the Santa Clarita Valley, Gary Nozawa of Roosevelt High School in the Los Angeles district, Raul Ubario of Dominguez High School in the Compton Unified School District and Angelo Villavicencio of Garfield High School in the Los Angeles district; each received $1,000.

Those who received $500 awards were Ted Belak of Edgewood Junior High School in the Bassett Unified School District in La Puente, Ty Gaffney of Wilson Middle School in the Pasadena Unified School District, Lynn Lary of Claremont High School in the Claremont Unified School District, Walter Schuster of Polytechnic High School in the Long Beach Unified School District and Michael Vancott of Macy Intermediate School in the Montebello Unified School District.