Cynthia Valdez named Trainer of the Year

Cynthia Valdez

Cynthia Valdez was named Trainer of the Year for 2015 at the OCDE (Orange County Department of Education) Project GLAD® 23rd Annual Conference October 1-2 in Irvine, California. The award recognizes Outstanding Leadership for one GLAD® trainer in the nation.  The nomination spoke to her implementation and support of Project GLAD® and how the strategies have led to increased academic achievement for Wenatchee School District second language learners, as evidenced on annual language testing results.

“It’s individual recognition, but to me, it’s really a team award,” says Valdez. “It’s an affirmation of how hard our team has worked.”

Project GLAD® is a model of professional development dedicated to building academic language and literacy for all students, especially English language learners.

Valdez leads a team of Project GLAD® trainers in the Wenatchee School District. Valdez, Kathryn Anderson, and Terri Goveia, underwent a rigorous process to become certified trainers to bring GLAD® tools to the district at a more economical cost than sending teachers to trainings. They became certified as K-12 trainers in December 2014, and were honored together for their accomplishment on October 2 at the national conference.

Valdez and her team attended the conference to share their tiered-approach to helping teachers become proficient in using GLAD® strategies in their classrooms.

Along with training teachers in the district, Valdez, Anderson and Goviea will be sharing their best practices with other schools throughout Washington this year.