Roxanne Miranda
Editor’s note: Part of a continuing series of stories profiling the award-winners of El Concilio Family Service 2012 Latino Leadership awards — “Excellence in Education.” The awards gala will be held on Friday, June 1, 2012 at the Oxnard Performing Arts Center. Click here or call 805-486-9777 for more information.
Amigos805 staff reports
Roxanne Reyna Miranda, a daughter of migrant field workers from Texas, has been a teacher for 16 years, has received a Teacher of the Year Award from colleagues at Fremont Intermediate School in Oxnard and teaches conflict resolution, anti-bullying and coping with peer pressure in her health classes. She was raised in public housing in Oxnard and graduated from Channel Islands High School and from California State University, Northridge. She went on to receive her master’s degree in education from the University of La Verne after beginning her teaching career.
“Roxanne is concerned with the whole child, not merely their academic life,” according to one nomination.
“She has fought hard to attain the health course and curriculum that she currently teaches here at Fremont. … Roxanne sacrificed many lunch and prep periods in order to provide students with spirit-building lunchtime activities. I also recall her registering students for and accompanying them to both a Navy Engineer Day and College Awareness Day at Oxnard College, as well as annual Coastal Cleanup events.”
She is the current Associated Student Body Advisor at Fremont Intermediate School in Oxnard.
“The Associate Student Body has been involved in many community events such as the Coastal Clean Up and has organized canned food drives to raise record-breaking food supplies for Food Share,” Miranda stated in the nomination release. “Another of the charities that I have been involved in is the Pennies for Patients collection for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. As the advisor I have organized biweekly Spirit Days to help motivate student involvement and connections.”
She has also been the AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) support science teacher and was the MESA (Mathematics, Engineering, Science and Achievement) advisor.
“I encourage student involvement in positive activities and expose them to interest that my otherwise go dormant,” Miranda stated. “My (MESA) students have participated in numerous competitions at universities for example at UCLA, USC, UCSB, CSUN and UC Santa Cruz.”