Schools’ Best Resource: A Great Teacher : State’s top teaching honor goes to kindergarten educator from La Habra

As California’s schools are stressed by budget cuts and high student-teacher ratios, our classroom teachers shore up the front lines. Increasingly, the state education system has also found itself up against the wall in trying to address language diversity. The selection last week of Maria Azucena Vigil as California Teacher of the Year makes a clear statement.

A kindergarten teacher at Las Lomas Elementary School in La Habra, where 68% of the student body is Latino, Vigil was selected by the state Department of Education for excellence in educating children from many linguistic backgrounds. She provides inspiration for teachers facing similar challenges throughout the state.

Vigil identifies with students who enter school bewildered because of an inability to understand lessons taught in English. Born in West Virginia of Spanish-speaking parents, Vigil says she can’t remember anything from her first years of school because she did not speak the same language as her teachers. She doesn’t want that to happen to her students.

But language barriers are not unique to Las Lomas. Just five years ago, nearly two-thirds of the students attending Orange County schools were white; today, barely half are, while 32% are Latino and 12% are Asian. In Los Angeles schools, the numbers are even more dramatic: Latino students increased to 64% in 1990 from 54% in 1985. Los Angeles schools now have 13% white students and 8% Asian.

What’s more, about a quarter of Orange County’s schoolchildren, and a third of Los Angeles’, have limited use of English. This creates new challenges for teachers who, like Vigil, must help students get past language barriers before they can even begin to learn the three Rs.

Vigil, 56, taught first grade for many years before she decided she would be more effective by reaching children at an earlier age. It is rare for the state’s top teaching honor to go to a kindergarten teacher. But Vigil represents excellence at a time when the schools face one of their greatest challenges: educating children of all ethnic backgrounds.