Apple of Gold

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Scholarship Recipients

Scholarship Information

2011 HEEF Apple of Gold Educational Leadership Awardees

Excellence in High School Teaching 2011
Ms. Yamila Castro
Western High School, Anaheim Union High School District

Ms. Yamila Castro is Spanish and AP Spanish Literature teacher with a focus on Spanish for Spanish Speakers at Western High School in the Anaheim Union High School District. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Spanish as well as her single subject teaching credential at California State University, Fullerton. Yamila Castro goes far beyond her teaching assignment to support Latino youth.

First, she is the WRITE Institute Trainer of Trainers, a program that provides teachers with various teaching strategies, which parallel the writing curriculum in the English classes. Second, she oversees the development of a standards-based curriculum for Spanish for Spanish Speakers, and in Spanish and French, and she is responsible for the development of common assessments that parallel ELA state exams and comply with Foreign Language standards as well. And, third, she analyzes district test results and revises and edits assessments to help students meet the course and state requirements.

Ms. Castro exemplifies the motivator: enthusiastic, energetic, pushing and pulling the students before, during, and after school to be the very best. Former students, Ana and Dulce Cruz state “We passed the AP Spanish Language and Literature Exam with the highest grade possible! She motivated us…and…dedicated much of her free time to help us prepare…for the exam.”

“For several years, during the Thanksgiving break, she took her Latino Club students to Mexico to volunteer their time in an orphanage and to provide food for the homeless near Tijuana,” said Curriculum Specialist Wendy Criner.

Interim Principal Michelle Surfas states “She is both a Master and Mentor Teacher and the ‘unofficial’ curriculum specialist in Spanish language for the district as well. Ms. Castro accomplishes all of this while being a dedicated mother of four children herself.”

Excellence in K-12 Leadership 2011
Lucinda Nares Pueblos
Century High School, Santa Ana Unified School District

Ms. Lucinda Nares Pueblos is principal of Century High School, Santa Ana Unified School District. She joined the Santa Ana USD after serving five years in the Los Angeles USD at Edison Middle School and at Banning High School where she was an English Language Development Teacher and Dean of Students.

“Lucinda is an excellent school site leader. Her colleagues respect her,” states former SAUSD Assistant Superintendent, R. Lewis Bratcher, retired. “She could have rested comfortably at Carr Intermediate or Lathrop Middle School or declined the role of being the Founding Principal at Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez Fundamental Intermediate School. Instead, she always volunteered to face a serious educational challenge. She is a natural leader.”

Prior to Century High School, Ms. Pueblos served as the principal of Middle College High School (MCHS) on the Santa Ana College Campus. During her tenure at MCHS, it received recognition as a Title I Achieving School, a California Distinguished School and as a National Blue Ribbon School, awarded by the U.S. Secretary of Education.

Ms. Pueblos has been recognized for her Educational Leadership by the Santa Ana School Administrators Association Principal of the Year, the Association of California School Administrators Diversity Award and nomination for the Project Tomorrow and AeA Innovation in Education Award.

The first in her family to graduate from college, Ms. Pueblos earned a Bachelor of Arts and a Single Subject English Credential from UCLA and a Masters of Arts in Educational Administration and the Administrative Credential at California State University, Dominguez Hills.

She and her husband are the proud parents of five children and grandparents to three grandchildren.

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Excellence in Post Secondary Leadership
Professor John Dombrink
Criminology, Law and SocietySchool of Social Ecology, UC Irvine

Many public school educators view their university colleagues as professors who live in ivory towers unaware and unconcerned about the issues confronting public education, especially K-12 schools districts which serve predominately Latino and low income students. Professor John D. Dombrink, a UC Berkeley Ph.D. in Sociology and professor of Criminology Law and Society at University of California, Irvine broke the mold. Since 1999, he has directed the Criminology Outreach Program (COP), which provides academic support and promotes college attendance on a weekly basis to over 1500 middle and high school students in the Garden Grove, Newport-Mesa, and Santa Ana Unified School Districts.

COP acquaints middle and high school students with college course content, familiarizes them with issues of student life and intellectual pursuit in college, and engages them in policy debates that occur in the criminology field. The program emphasizes critical thinking; writing; oral presentations- such as mock trials and mock legislative sessions, and library research- bringing UCI-library electronic research skills through workshops.

Robert Sterling, AVID Coordinator at Estancia High School, states, “Dr. Dombrink’s students can be found in the California Legislature, Assembly member Jose Solorio, on the Bench, Superior Court Judge, Hon. Roy Delgado, and on the National Labor Relations Board, UCLA Law School graduate Irma Hernandez.” Sterling adds, “They visit classrooms and inspire students to lead and serve.”

Teachers say that students may not understand the entire justice system, but after having this classroom based experience, they can examine, assess, and form opinions about the law, justice, and democracy.

Dr. Dombrink’s UCI student mentors’ mantra is: “Think globally, Act locally!”