Beloved New York City elementary teacher Sandra Santos-Vizcaino succumbed to Covid-19 on March 30.

The Covid-19 pandemic has claimed the lives of several beloved educators. One of these is Sandra Santos-Vizcaino, a beloved elementary school teacher from New York City.

Sandra was born November 1, 1965, in Cotui, Dominican Republic. Her father, Antonio Santos, was an aviation mechanic and her mother, Natividad Brito, was employed as a seamstress and cake-baker. The family transplanted to New York City when Sandra was 11.

As a young woman, Sandra earned her Bachelor’s degree from Bard College, with a double major in Biology and Latin American Literature. Next, she attended Long Island University, Brooklyn campus, where she earned two Master’s degrees, one in Science and the second in Science Education. She also earned a degree in Educational Leadership and Administration from the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York.

Sandra inaugurated her career as an educator in 1995. She taught for four years at PS 9 in the Prospect Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn. There she taught third grade in the dual-language program, with instruction in both English and Spanish. She had a reputation for her heartwarming hugs and her generous soul.  But she was also known for her seriousness, for her rigor, and for pushing her students to read. In all, she taught 25 years.

Sandra was a member of the Association of Dominican American Supervisors and Administrators. She was awarded the Outstanding Education Leader Award in the Dominican Republic for her work in education on the island.

Sadly, Sandra passed away on March 31, 2020, from Covid-19. She was 54 years old. “The notion that we’ve lost a teacher, it’s very painful,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “These are people who devote their lives to our kids, and losing someone who is that good a person, who is giving that much, is just very very painful.”

To read more about this amazing educator, see her obituary at the New York Times.

I always enjoy sharing stories about teachers and their exciting curriculum. Here is the story of Cindy Pearson, a third grade teacher at Loma Elementary in Loma, Colorado. Cindy is the winner of the 2020 Outstanding Agriculture in the Classroom Teacher Award offered by the Colorado Foundation for Agriculture. View this short you tube video to find out how Cindy incorporates agriculture into her third grade curriculum. It’s fascinating!

Chalkboard Champion Lourdes Leon Guerrero of Guam

Many of America’s great teachers served in areas outside of the continental US. One of these was Lourdes Leon Guerrero, a celebrated educator from the US territory of Guam.

Lourdes was born on November 9, 1923, in the village of Merizo, Guam. Her father was a machinist in the US Navy, and her mother was a schoolteacher. As a young girl, Lourdes attended George Washington Junior/Senior High School. In fact, she was the valedictorian for her ninth grade class.

After her high school graduation, Lourdes completed courses in teaching pedagogy at the Normal School of Guam in 1946. She also studied at the Teacher Training Institute at Adelup in Guam. In 1969, she earned her Bachelor’s degree in 1969, cum laude. She earned her Master’s degree in Education in 1975. Lourdes obtained both of her degrees from the University of Guam.

Lourdes inaugurated her career as an educator at Sumay, the location of a settlement of chamorros. Chamorros are the indigenous people of the Mariana islands, of which Guam is the largest and southernmost island. When the Japanese occupied the island chain during World War II, Lourdes continued to teach in Sumay until the war ended in May, 1944.

Over the 57 years that her teaching career spanned, Lourdes worked at a number of other schools in Guam. She worked at Maxwell School, Merizo Elementary School, Sinajana Elementary School, Talofofo Elementary School, and Santa Rita Elementary School. She also worked at John F. Kennedy, George Washington, Oceanview, and Simon Sanchez High Schools. For her work in the classroom and as an administrator, Lourdes earned the Pioneer in Education from the University of Guam in 1996.

This remarkable teacher passed away on February 25, 2010. She was 86 years old. After her passing, she was inaugurated into the Guam Educators Hall of Fame.

To read the resolution published by the Guam legislature about this Chalkboard Champion, click on this link: Resolution No. R298-30.

Second grade educator Anna DiGilio of New York has earned phenomenal success in the business world.

Many excellent educators also enjoy phenomenal success in the business world. One teacher who took her superb abilities from the classroom to the business arena is elementary teacher Anna DiGilio of New York. She has harnessed the power of the Internet for her business, and in just a few short years she has built a million-dollar business. In addition to her business success, she continues to impact the educational community in numerous ways.

Anna taught second grade for a total of 23 years. She inaugurated her career in education in the Yonkers Public School District in New York. In 1998, she transferred to the Briarcliff Manor School District. She taught second grade there for 18 years.

In 2012, Anna was doing some internet research looking for some ideas for her classroom. She came across the website Teachers Pay Teachers. There she found that teachers were creating lesson plans, activities, and classroom decor resources digitally. They were selling these instructional items to other teachers through this site. Anna quickly realized that using this site could be a way to earn some extra money. She began creating branded resources and product lines that would build a name for herself in the online teaching community. She created her own brands such as Flip Flap Books, Tab-Its, Spin-Its, Teach-Its, and others.

“Being a teacher at heart, I was still all about the learning,” remembers Anna. “I spent every waking moment creating my resources, reading books, listening to podcasts, and taking online courses to help me build a more significant business, and to ultimately help teachers have a substantial impact in their classrooms,” she continued. Within two years, Anna managed to sell so many materials online that she doubled her teaching salary. That’s when she decided to retire from teaching and devote her talents to curriculum design full-time.

In January, 2017, Anna launched a membership website for second and third grade teachers called Simply Skilled Teaching. The website provides teachers with guided reading books, lesson plans, and activities to help them provide rigorous and creative reading instruction for their students. In April, 2018, Anna expanded her business when she launched an online Professional Development Workshop for teachers and school districts called Guided Math that Works. This company is an online program that teaches educators how to implement Guided Math framework into their classrooms. The program allows teachers to differentiate their mathematics instruction based on the individual levels of each student. The professional development workshop has been a great success, and Anna has sold this program to over 500 individual teachers and over 30 school districts in the first two months of the program’s existence.

“It has been a long journey up to this point, but I couldn’t be happier,” Anna confesses. “Not only am I helping teachers on a daily basis, I feel like I get to be a little part of their students’ lives as well,” she concluded.

To learn more about Anna’s success in the business world, read this interview published online by Forbes. Click on this link to visit the website Teachers Pay Teachers.