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Students and staff honored: district names essay winner and employees of the year
Summary
Lancaster School District recognized Angelica Gonzalez as the district's grand-prize winner of the Inspirational Teacher Essay and presented site and district employee-of-the-year awards across multiple categories including counselor, psychologist, SLP and instructional coach.
The meeting opened with a public awards ceremony recognizing students and district employees.
Bart Hoffman of SIS Supervet Services introduced the 2025 Inspirational Teacher Essay contest in memory of Lynn Shettik and described the panel of judges that included family members and former colleagues. "When Lynn passed away, her family saw fit to suggest donations in her name... the foundation worked with Lynn's family to come up with a fitting tribute," Hoffman said.
Angelica Gonzalez, an eighth grader, read the grand-prize essay about her seventh-grade teacher, Mr. Nishimoto: "sometimes in life the universe send you a person that you didn't know would impact your life so much," Gonzalez read, describing how the teacher's encouragement helped her believe in herself.
Following the student recognition, the district celebrated employees of the year. The event included a long roll call of site winners (both certificated and classified staff) and presentations of special-category awards: Christina Ramirez was named District School Counselor of the Year; Angie Valencia was announced as school psychologist of the year; the district recognized a speech-language pathologist of the year (recipient absent) and identified other special-education and instructional coaching honorees, including Stacy A. Costa (district instructional coach of the year).
Trustees and administrators praised awardees for their service and invited photos and refreshments before moving into the board's regular agenda.
