United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona conferred three awards in education Thursday.
The two Literacy Champions announced were Bonita Stembridge, a third-grade teacher at Holladay Magnet School, and Carolina Rojas, a Head Start teacher with Child Parent Centers.
The Business Champion for Early Education Award went to Steve Lynn of Lynn Consulting Group and NuPoint Marketing, LLC.
School administrators, principals, parents and other community members nominated 32 teachers for this year’s awards, which were presented at the 19th Annual Business Leaders for Early Education Breakfast hosted by Women United, a United Way affinity group.
Stembridge has taught at Holladay for 21 years.
“I have a passion for teaching and watching students learn,” she said. “… I encourage them daily to reach their full potential, to do their personal best, and never give up. I strive to teach reading strategies and skills in a way that will create a lifelong love of reading in my students and I firmly believe that great readers are great leaders.”
Rojas has taught for 14 years for Head Start at Child Parent Centers.
“Being a bilingual early childhood teacher at Prince Head Start has allowed me to work with diverse children and families,” Rojas said, and “to learn about their unique characteristics and needs, provide support for them through various aspects of their lives, create a community of learners. … Reading stories to the children in my classroom brings back memories of my high school years and reminds me of why I chose my career.”
Lynn was a founding board member of First Things First and serves as vice chair/former chair. He was instrumental in advocating a bill in the Arizona Legislature that allows library district funds to be used for early literacy and school readiness programs. In Pima County, Lynn was on the founding Preschool Promise committee. which became the PEEPS (Pima Early Education Program Scholarships) program and resulted in nearly 1,000 low-income children gaining access to early childhood education. The program aims to break the cycle of poverty.
Last year’s breakfast raised more than $125,000 for early childhood literacy.
‘Systems Change’
The Cradle to Career Partnership (C2C), anchored at United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona, was recognized with a “Systems Change” designation from StriveTogether.
The announcement was made Wednesday in an event at the University of Arizona’s College of Education.
StriveTogether, a national network of community partnerships, recognized C2C’s “commitment to fostering systemic change that benefits youth, particularly those from marginalized communities.”
“C2C has impacted the lives of over 36,286 individuals” in Pima County since its inception in 2016, the partnership said in a news release.
Districts win PR awards
The Arizona School Public Relations Association honored Pima County school communication departments with 22 awards of excellence and merit at a ceremony Feb. 8 in Phoenix.
Tucson Unified School District received nine awards; Sunnyside Unified School District six; Amphitheater Public Schools five; Flowing Wells Unified School District one; and Pima County School Superintendent’s Office one.
