SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : District Picks 2 as Teachers of the Year

The Capistrano Unified School District this week named two educators as 1991 Teachers of the Year.

Marilyn Montgomery, a teacher at Crown Valley Elementary School and a 20-year veteran, and Angela Martin Gorno, a foreign languages teacher at Capistrano Valley High School and a 14-year veteran, were selected from among 27 nominees.

Montgomery has been a district teacher, mentor teacher, master teacher and intern supervisor. She has also been on such district panels as the math textbook selection and family life curricula committees and helped pilot the Parents are Teachers Too program.

At Tuesday’s board meeting, Montgomery called the award a “real honor.”

“There is nothing else more important in my life, other than my family, than teaching,” she said. “Where else could I wear the same dress to work every day and be told I’m beautiful?”

Gorno, a native of Cuba, has also worked as a mentor teacher and is coordinator of the district’s gifted students program. She is a recipient of the Bill Honig Certificate of Recognition and Commendation. Last year, all of her advanced-placement students passed the College Board test.

In a tearful acceptance speech, Gorno thanked her parents for guidance and dedicated the award to them.

With about 28,000 students, Capistrano Unified qualified to select two educators as Teachers of the Year.

Montgomery and Gorno will now compete with teachers from across the county for the county Department of Education Teachers of the Year Award. Four winners from that event will go on to the state competition, and the winner of that will compete for the national Teacher of the Year award.