Both were named Orange County teachers of the year in May and moved on for statewide consideration.<\/a><\/p>\nSaldivar, who is finalizing work for her PhD at Concordia University, said she was on a call with the department chair discussing final elements of her dissertation when she got a call from an unknown number. It was Thurmond.<\/p>\n
She said Thornton told her he\u2019s excited to have her join his team and that she will represent California as an ambassador for education.<\/p>\n
Saldivar, who\u2019s been teaching for 12 years, including some high school classes, said she wants to use her higher profile to speak up for teachers, the Anaheim community, and her students.<\/p>\n
She also said she\u2019s hopeful the state recognition will open doors to join state education committees to address standards and curricula.<\/p>\n
Among the topics Saldivar would like to dive deeper into is math instruction within the immersive bilingual student education, she said. She said that topic is also the focus of her dissertation, which she will defend next week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to continue bringing the rigor,\u201d she said, referring to math instruction in her classes. \u201cNot just because students can\u2019t speak English fluently and are struggling through the language, but what can we do to maintain the rigor and keep them engaged?\u201d<\/p>\n
She hopes to continue studying this topic and even move some of that work to the state committees.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d love to join the math committee,\u201d she said, adding that in her classroom instruction she brings in community members who have jobs in fields where math is among the core foundation.<\/p>\n
At times, she\u2019s brought in her husband, who is an engineer, to speak with students and even help her explain some math concepts that are harder.<\/p>\n
She also hosts a \u201cThink like an Engineer\u201d night with her husband and other engineers talking about their different occupations.<\/p>\n
As a lure, Saldivar said she hands out \u201cSaldi Bucks,\u201d which students can earn if they do extraordinary things such as doing a special presentation, exhibiting polite behavior or participating in special activities such as the engineering night. Each week they deposit their money in the bank and have to do math on their balance.<\/p>\n
The engineering night also gives her an opportunity to connect with families in the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I love about math is there\u2019s different ways to solve a math problem, it\u2019s just not one way,\u201d Saldivar said. \u201cIt makes parents comfortable with that. They\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, this is how I learned to do math.\u2019 All these things and pairing them up with the recognition, maybe we can make it bigger now.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the end, Saldivar said math matters not only for daily life, like paying bills and balancing bank accounts, but also for building a strong foundation in logical and analytical thinking.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of us could understand math,\u201d she said, adding that she had her own fears wth it as a young student. \u201cBut we need somebody to really explain it to us in a way that we can really understand it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially in math, there are so many levels our kids come in at,\u201d she added. \u201cI have some fifth graders doing eighth-grade math \u2014 they just get it. But I have some struggling and they\u2019re around the third-grade level.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel so many students don\u2019t go into the STEM fields,\u201d a lot of which are math-related, she said, and giving a student that initial understanding might help them see a career they might not have considered otherwise.<\/p>\n
Monica Berro, Loara Elementary School\u2019s principal, said Saldivar\u2019s commitment to ensuring students aren\u2019t left behind sets her apart. The pre-K to 6th grade school has an enrollment of 519 students.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen she sees her students struggle, she\u2019s their biggest cheerleader, and the perseverance her students display, you can see it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are times when I\u2019ve gone in and seen her step back, and the students are running the show themselves,\u201d\u00a0Berro added. \u201cThey\u2019re teaching each other and explaining the math problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
And when she heard Saldivar was named among the top teachers of California, Berro said she wasn\u2019t surprised.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is so fitting for Wendy,\u201d Berro said. \u201cI knew when we first went through the process, and she was identified as Teacher of the Year at our site, and once I knew she received Teacher of the Year for the district, I said, \u2018Wendy, you can take it far. You\u2019re not stopping at the district recognition.\u2019 It\u2019s honorable, and she wears it well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Berro said that Saldivar\u2019s enthusiasm for teaching and learning is contagious not only among her students but also to her colleagues and other teachers in the district.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime you\u2019re in her classroom, you see the community and the culture she\u2019s established with her young learners,\u201d Berro said. \u201cWhen I see her working with her students, they\u2019re welcomed in her learning environment and have that sense of discovery and willingness to try new things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whenever Wendy Saldivar or someone in her family celebrates a victory, she cues up Kool & The Gang\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,7,179,15,100,611,1997,136],"class_list":["post-491031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-california","tag-community","tag-education","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-schools","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}