Program Leader's Message

Welcome!

The past only comes back when the present runs so smoothly that it is like the sliding surface of a deep river. Then one sees through the surface to the depths. In those moments I find one of my greatest satisfactions, not that I am thinking of the past; but that it is then that I am living most fully in the present.

I am overjoyed to serve as the South Bay Consortium Teacher Induction Program Coordinator. In Moments of Being, Virginia Woolf narrates her thoughts about the past and present. I share her words, because they spark dialogue around our past experiences and how they are an integral part of who we are and who we want to be as educators.

In my past, I have served as a volunteer English Language Development teacher in the Marshall Islands, and I taught English at the high and middle school levels in the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District for a decade. I completed my doctoral dissertation through the University of Southern California focused on Teacher Education in Multicultural Societies, while serving as a learning and teaching advisor for the Cook Islands government.

Returning from abroad, I supervised student teachers and interns in schools across Los Angeles County, coordinated the credential clinical programs, developed school partnerships, and wrote grants for the College of Education at California State University Dominguez Hills for more than five years. Additionally, as a coordinator for Hawthorne School District, I researched and wrote grants, while managing district-wide communications. I feel that my past experiences have led seamlessly to this position, and I am grateful to work with beginning teachers, mentors, and administrators across our consortium districts.

As the nexus between preliminary teaching credential programs and the professional clear credential, induction plays a pivotal role in bridging a teachers' past experiences to be effective in their present classrooms and develop sustainability in their future practice. Through a focus on developing practice during these formative years, teachers have the opportunity to better serve their students in the present and beyond.

I look forward to deepening the present as we reflect, learn, and grow together in this program.

Sincerely,

Cristina Stephany