CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 A bilingual kindergarten teacher at Galvan Elementary School is now the top teacher in Texas.<\/p>\n
Denise Caldera was named the 2027 Texas Elementary Teacher of the Year on Oct. 16 at a ceremony in Round Rock. She was also chosen to represent the state in the National Teacher of the Year competition, making her the official 2027 Texas Teacher of the Year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see it more than an honor. I think it\u2019s a huge responsibility that I have,\u201d Caldera said. \u201cI now have a bigger platform to advocate for teachers and students and families in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caldera has taught for 19 years with Corpus Christi ISD, working with students from pre-K through second grade. This is her 12th year teaching kindergarten.<\/p>\n
She grew up in Corpus Christi, but her family were migrant workers who traveled to Minnesota every summer to work in the fields.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe sat in the van and watched my parents work so we saw how hard they worked and we knew that higher education was a way for us to not have to work those long hours in the heat,\u201d Caldera said.<\/p>\n
Those experiences still shape her teaching. Today, she tutors migrant students as well as her class at Galvan.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of what I lived in my personal life I like to serve others,\u201d she said. \u201cI think that a day in life that we don\u2019t serve others is a day wasted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caldera said one student she\u2019ll never forget was struggling academically when he lost his father. She lost her own father at 18, and the two built a bond. He became one of her top students and is now in college.<\/p>\n
This past summer, Caldera taught students and mentored teachers at a school in Africa. She said she plans to go back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went there thinking that I was gonna teach them but I actually came back being a learner myself,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Caldera holds a bachelor\u2019s and a master\u2019s degree from Texas A&M University\u2013Corpus Christi, as well as associate degrees from Del Mar College. She was named the 2026 CCISD Teacher of the Year before advancing to the state level.<\/p>\n
Next, she\u2019ll compete for National Teacher of the Year.<\/p>\n
Her message for her students is simple.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere you start should never determine how far you can go,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
For the latest local news updates, click here<\/a>, or download the KRIS 6 News App.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 A bilingual kindergarten teacher at Galvan Elementary School is now the top teacher in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156,3370],"class_list":["post-481795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news","tag-southside-corpus-christi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}