5 Named As Top Teachers

Sandra Streeter expected to learn by letter whether she was chosen as one of Orange County’s five teachers of the year.

Instead, she was ambushed with the good news Friday.

“They actually came in during my beginning band class and entered the room with all these people and cameras and video tape and my family,” said Streeter, who teaches music at El Rancho Middle School in Anaheim.

Streeter and 10 other finalists were interviewed on Wednesday and did not expect to hear the results so soon.

“It’s a surprise and it’s exciting,” she said. “You just never know.”

The other winners named Friday, chosen from 53 nominees, are Jeffrey Carter Sink, a history teacher at Brea Olinda High School in Brea; David J. Chamberlain, a math teacher at Aliso Viejo Middle School; Tracey Ann Olguin, a social studies teacher at Costa Mesa High School, and William E. Holston, a social and behavioral sciences instructor at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo.

Each will receive $15,000 at an awards banquet in October and will be entered in the state Teacher of the Year competition, sponsored by the Dr. James Hines Foundation. An additional $25,000 will be divided equally among the other 47 teachers nominated by their districts.

The foundation, established in 1992 to reward outstanding educators, already has awarded $600,000 to Orange County educators.