For Immediate Release
Feb. 26, 2015
Contact:
Elise Randall
(425) 829-4921
elise@larsonpr.com
ALAMEDA ENGLISH TEACHER RECOGNIZED AS
EDUCATOR OF THE YEAR
Shia Smith recognized by California Teacher Corps for impact on students
Sacramento – California Teacher Corps, the statewide organization representing California’s
alternative certification programs, today announced that Shia Smith is the recipient of the 2015
Michael McKibbin Outstanding Educator of the Year Award. Smith, who works at the Phillips
Academy in Alameda, teaches English and world cultures to students with special needs.
The award honors an exemplary California educator who pursued teaching through an alternative
certification program and is now serving in a high-need public school. Smith will receive the
award on Feb. 27 during the Fifth Annual California Teacher Corps Conference held in
Sacramento.
“We are thrilled to recognize Shia Smith as the winner of the 2015 Michael McKibbin
Outstanding Educator of the Year,” said California Teacher Corps President Patricia Pernin.
“Shia’s passion and skill embodies the commitment of the almost 3,000 Teacher Corps educators
who support students in underserved communities throughout California.”
Smith teaches high school English and world cultures at the Phillips Academy, where all of the
students have Individual Education Plans. Smith’s path to teaching has been a progressive search
for the best way to serve and advocate for disempowered, marginalized and voiceless
communities. She has experience in many nonprofits, mentoring writers, leading theater
workshops and designing English curricula. Her desire to work more directly with students led
Smith to enroll in a certification program at the University of San Francisco.
“Earning my teacher certification while interning was the only way that I could become a teacher
and do what I love,” said Smith. “Financially supporting my family in this career transition made
my dreams a reality and I am so thankful that now I get to teach my students every day.”
Using her experience as a writer, Smith designed a unique English curriculum that allows the
students to improve their writing, explore their identities, as well as to make connections
between the literature they are reading and their own lives. She engages students, helping them
to expand their vocabularies, become creative writers and share their work with each other.
Nearly single-handedly organizing the school’s first annual fundraiser, Smith has proved
invaluable to the culture and progress of Phillips Academy.
Nancy Smith, a San Bernardino special education teacher, and Veronica Duran, a special
education instructor in Indio, received the second and third places respectively for the Michael
McKibbin Outstanding Educator Award. Both Nancy Smith and Duran received their teacher
credentials through an alternative program at California State University San Bernardino.
The Michael McKibbin Outstanding Educator Award is named in honor of Michael McKibbin, a
strong advocate for alternative route to certification programs in California. McKibbin was
instrumental in establishing and supporting the alternative pathway through more than two
decades of working with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.
About the California Teacher Corps
The California Teacher Corps is a nonprofit organization established in 2009 with the goal of
placing 100,000 highly-qualified teachers in California’s communities by 2020. The Teacher
Corps provides a unified voice for the state’s alternative certification programs, effectively and
proactively addresses teacher preparation issues facing California and recruits the best and the
brightest professionals to teach in the public schools that need them most. California Teacher
Corps membership trains second-career teachers, and others committed to working in hard-tostaff schools, who have deep subject-area expertise and who remain in the teaching profession.
For more information, visit the California Teacher Corps at www.cateachercorps.org.
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