National Award for Teacher Cheers Students, Colleagues

A Capistrano Valley High School teacher got a Disneyland-size surprise last week when it was announced that she had been chosen one of 36 teachers nationwide to receive the American Teacher Award.

Angela del Carmen Martin Gorno was the only Orange County teacher and one of only four from California to be selected.

The award, sponsored and presented by the Walt Disney Co. and McDonald’s, recognizes outstanding efforts by educators.

“I’m in awe,” Martin Gorno said. “It’s unbelievable.”

The Spanish teacher has worked in the Capistrano Unified School District for 19 years, the last 10 at Capistrano Valley High.

Martin Gorno, 39, who immigrated from Cuba with her family when she was a young girl, was the district’s High School Teacher of the Year in 1991.

The American Teacher Award, Martin Gorno said, “validates what I do and all my efforts. At Capo Valley we have an amazing staff, I’m just lucky to represent all of them.”

More than 1,500 teachers submitted applications for the American Teacher Awards.

In May, Martin Gorno was one of 60 teachers chosen by a selection committee representing the nation’s leading educational organizations to be videotaped and profiled for a series of television segments saluting the American teacher on the Disney Channel.

Over the summer, the committee then chose Martin Gorno and 35 others as the 1996 award winners.

They will be honored in December at a televised event in Los Angeles. The videotaped profiles of the 60 educators will later be broadcast weekly.

“We’re so proud of her,” said Principal Jessica Gorman, who praised Martin Gorno as a hard worker and enthusiastic teacher.

Student Natalie Ojuez said her Spanish III classmates all agreed that Martin Gorno deserved the award.

“People always say learning is fun,” said Ojuez, 16. “In her class I found out it really can be.”