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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 91��Ƭ�� 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 91��Ƭ��. 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.