FRESNO COUNTY \u2013 Educators from around Fresno County were recognized for their hard work and dedication to the field and their students by the Fresno County Office of Education.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the 2025 Educator of the Year Awards on Nov. 20, the Office of the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools recognized five award winners, naming this year\u2019s top school employee, administrator, teacher and more. According to a press release, the event was hosted at the William Saroyan Theater in Fresno in partnership with Educational Employees Credit Union.<\/p>\n
\u201cTonight, we celebrated the educators and school employees whose work changes the trajectory of students\u2019 lives,\u201d Fresno County Superintendent of Schools Michele Cantwell-Copher said. \u201cTheir commitment and compassion don\u2019t just support learning, they build futures, strengthen families and elevate our entire community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Honorees included Vladimar Wells, named School Employee of the Year; Lucio Cortez, named Administrator of the Year; Maritza Ceballos, named Teacher of the Year; Sylvia Armendariz, who received the \u201cBig Things in Small Places\u201d award; and Ron Scott, who received the Barnett Award.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Scott hails from Sanger Unified School District and currently works as the activities director at Sanger High School. In receiving the Barnett Award, Scott demonstrated selfless service that enhances the community. According to a press release from FCOE, Scott works as a liaison between the Sanger community and school activities, fostering an environment that encourages student participation and meaningful community service.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The \u201cBig Things in Small Places\u201d award received by Armendariz, an administrative assistant at Clay Elementary School near Kingsburg, recognized excellence from a smaller school district. At Clay Joint Elementary School District, Armendariz \u201cexemplifies greatness as defined as selfless exceptionalism by living out the school\u2019s vision: one community, one goal,\u201d the press release said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
School Employee of the Year went to Wells, a campus safety assistant at Yosemite Middle School in the Fresno Unified School District. Administrator of the Year was awarded to Cortez, a principal at Laton High School, and Teacher of the Year went to Ceballos, who works as a preschool master teacher at the Lighthouse for Children Child Development Center within FCOE.\u00a0<\/p>\n
School districts submitted nomination packets highlighting their employees in March of this year. A diverse committee conducted an initial review and scoring of the applications, after which the top-ranked nominees advanced to a final selection panel where evaluators casted closed ballots to determine the winners.<\/p>\n
School Employee and Teacher of the Year winners will advance to the California Department of Education\u2019s statewide recognition program.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese outstanding educators should take great pride in their accomplishments and the amazing work they are doing daily to enrich the school experience for all students,\u201d EECU President and CEO Elizabeth J. Dooley said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO COUNTY \u2013 Educators from around Fresno County were recognized for their hard work and dedication to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[3415,15,112,622,40817,114,113],"class_list":["post-69012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-awards","tag-education","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-county","tag-fresno-county-superintendent-of-schools","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69012","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=69012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}