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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 26, 2021
Emmy Zack, Communications Specialist    ezack@acoe.org, 510-670-7754 

Oakland, San Leandro and Pleasanton Educators 
Receive County Teacher of the Year Honors

Hayward, CA - Jessica Jung of Oakland Unified School District, Erica Viray Santos from San Leandro Unified School District and Josh Hill of Pleasanton Unified School District have been named 2021 Alameda County Teachers of the Year. They will be recognized, along with other 15 other district winners at the 32nd Alameda County Teacher of the Year Awards Ceremony at the Center for the Arts in Castro Valley on November 4.

Jung and Viray Santos were finalists for the California State Teacher of the Year, which was announced prior to ACOE's annual recognition event.

Jung has taught at Bridges Academy for 14 years as a classroom teacher, enrichment teacher, intervention teacher, and ELD instructional coach. She speaks three languages, including Korean and conversational Spanish. Jung’s students come from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, and she makes home visits an integral part of her teaching philosophy in order to forge strong collaborative relationships. She provides families with phone calls, text messages and weekly newsletters.

Viray Santos is in her 14th year at San Leandro High School and prior to that spent three years at James Logan High School in Union City. She is the chair/coordinator of the school’s innovative Social Justice Academy (more than 100 students per year) which is a rigorous three-year program designed for students to realize their potential as agents of positive and transformative change. Viray Santos has consistently advocated for and led multiple efforts to expand Social Justice education and mental health and wellness programming in the district.

Hill has been at Foothill High School for 13 years where he is a Biomedical teacher and the Career Technical Education (CTE) Department, and District, Chair. He follows a teaching style of "connections before content," placing a huge priority on building relationships and rapport with his students. Hill has been integral in the push for numerous grants to support the expansion of CTE courses and Project Lead the Way (PLTW) programs and spends hours writing grants and  submitting applications to design and secure funding for CTE programs and facilities.

Hill was a 2020 district selection, but eligible for County honors in 2021 as there were no County selections made last year due to the pandemic.

"On behalf of everyone who works within the Alameda County educational system, I am thrilled that we had two state finalists and and am honored to present our three County award winners. We are humbled by all of the district honorees who rose to the occasion in the past year," said Alameda County Superintendent of Schools L.K. Monroe. "More than 10,000 teachers in the county were able to pivot in these unique circumstances and quickly figure out the best ways to keep students engaged and learning in new ways. They exceeded in doing so beyond our expectations."

The Alameda County winners were selected by a panel of educators who reviewed detailed applications and a series of essays submitted by a field of 17 outstanding county district honorees.

Details about the 2021 Alameda County Teacher of the Year Awards Ceremony, and bios on all the district honorees, are available at acoe.org/teachersoftheyear. Tickets for the event, which runs from 7:00-9:00pm, can be purchased in advance at acoe.org/tickets.

The 2021 district honorees in Alameda County are:

  • Alameda County Office of Education - Lori Thelen

  • Castro Valley Unified School District - Elisa Correia-Dasalla

  • Dublin Unified School District - Lilia Tsui

  • Eden Area Regional Occupational Program - Cheryl Grixti

  • Emery Unified School District - Ashante Smith

  • Hayward Unified School District - Thalia McNeil-Smith

  • Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District - Christopher Filice

  • Mission Valley Regional Occupational Program - Chef Christopher Skrocke

  • Newark Unified School District - Catherine Scheving

  • Oakland Unified School District - Chantel Parnell

  • Oakland Unified School District - Jessica Jung

  • Oakland Unified School District - Whitney Dwyer

  • Pleasanton Unified School District - Russell Sato

  • San Leandro Unified School District - Erica Viray Santos

  • San Lorenzo Unified School District - Susan Guinee (posthumous)

  • Sunol Glen Unified School District - Christopher Wheeler

  • Tri-Valley Regional Occupational Program - Diana Hasenpflug

 
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About ACOE
The Alameda County Office of Education (ACOE), under the leadership of County Superintendent of Schools L. K. Monroe, serves as liaison between the California Department of Education and the 18 Alameda County public school districts that serve more than 200,000 students and 10,000 teachers. ACOE provides oversight of district budgets and Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAPs). ACOE also directly operates schools that serve Alameda County's most vulnerable students: Court Schools at the Juvenile Justice Center, ACOE Opportunity Academy schools serving students 16 and older seeking a high school diploma, and Community Schools that serve foster youth, students in substance abuse treatment, pregnant and parenting teens, Probation-referred youth, and students expelled from their resident school districts. ACOE also runs the Infant & Family Support Program, which provides individualized service for children from birth to three years and their families. For more information, visit www.acoe.org.
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