Recognition/Service Award/Grant Winners

"Maria Fielteau is a National Board Certified ENL Teacher who has been teaching in the Utica City School District for 15 years. In addition to teaching high school ENL, she serves as the ENL Department Chair and Teacher Leader. Most recently, Maria was the co-coordinator and participant in a NYS Learning Technology Grant. In this capacity, she collaborated with teachers in her department and other content area departments to create culturally and linguistically responsive lessons that were published as open-source documents on the USCD website. In addition, she coordinated the professional development for the Utica Technology Experiences and Media team, teaching others (100 teachers across 13 schools) how to use G Suite to provide personalized learning for their diverse student population. Maria has been an adjunct instructor at Clarkson University since 2018, teaching fully online courses in Literacy Methods, Grammar, and Linguistics, as well as a student teaching residency seminar."

"Dr. Sandra Vargas-Ortega has been an educator for over 17 years. She has served as a bilingual teacher in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, and has worked with students, teachers, and administrators in a variety of different settings. Currently, she works as an English as a New Language (ENL)Teacher in the Department of Education in NYC serving students in grades K-5. She also serves as the ENL school coordinator where she designs and implements ENL programing and manages compliance data. Additionally, she serves as a volunteer Co-chair for the secondary education interest group of New York State Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.In December 2021, she obtained a Doctorate Degree in Philosophy (Ph.D.), Second Language Acquisition Research from the Inter American University of Puerto Rico, Ponce Campus. Her published dissertation is titled: The Influence of District-Charter Collaboration on English Language Learners’ Academic Success. Dr. Vargas-Ortega has built relationships with educators, colleagues and administrators which has allowed her to embrace several leadership opportunities such as creating partnerships among district and charter schools, leading professional development, collecting and analyzing data among many more."

"Dr. Ann C. Wintergerst is Professor Emerita and retired professor of TESOL at St. John’s University in New York City where she established and directed the university’s first English as a Second Language Program. She has written five books, some 70 articles, and over 90 conference presentations on culture, the maintenance of heritage language, learning styles, classroom discourse, writing and assessment, academic program review, and advocacy for part-time faculty. Dr. Wintergerst holds a B.A. “summa cum laude” in German from St. John’s University, an M.A. in TESOL, an ED.M. in Applied Linguistics, and an Ed.D. in TESOL, all from Teachers College, Columbia University. Born in Germany, she is bilingual in German and English.

"Kimberly Kern is a student in Clarkson University’s Master of Arts in Teaching ESOL program, Capital Region Campus. She has over a decade of experience working with K-12 students as a Teaching Assistant in the Guilderland Central School District, many of whom are ELLs/MLLs, and has taken steps to become a certified ESOL teacher in our graduate program. Kimberly is in her second of four semesters of the MAT ESOL program, with a 4.0 GPA for the 15 credits of TESOL coursework that she has already taken. She will complete her year-long student teaching residency in the Guilderland Central School District and will finish her MAT ESOL degree in June 2023. "

"Rachel Weber grew up on Long Island and graduated from Columbia University, where she received a BA in Comparative Literature and attained her teaching certificate in English Adolescence Education. She has been working as a high school educator on Long Island since 2004 and completed her Masters in English in 2006 and a second Masters in Applied Linguistics in 2016 both from Teachers College. She has worked as an ESL instructor in the Community Language Program at Teachers College, volunteered as a tutor for Literacy Suffolk, served as an adjunct for an English for Professional Purposes course at Adelphi University, and taught aboard in Haiti, Vietnam, Poland, Russia, and Romania. Currently, she teaches 11th and 12th grade ENL and 11th grade Advanced Placement English at Sachem High School East in Farmingville, Long Island."