Teacher of the Week: Mrs. Vega from Rock Cut Elementary School

Congratulations to our newest Teacher of the Week, Mrs. Vega from Rock Cut Elementary School in Loves park, Illinois.

Mrs. Vega was gifted with beautiful flowers from Broadway Florist and delicious cupcakes from Sugar Jones.

The winning nomination came from Amy Mayberry, her best friend.

Amy writes:

My best friend Sandra is the hardest working teacher I know, and I know a lot of teachers. She is a bilingual teacher for the Harlem school district. They lost one of their bilingual teachers this year and were unable to find a replacement by the time school started. So a week prior to students coming back, the principal asked Sandra if she would be willing to take on 2 classrooms until they found someone to hire. She teaches 3rd grade, and she also took on the first grade class.

She taught Spanish in both of the classrooms, setup up both rooms, communicated with parents, and handled the majority of the work while they had a substitute teach the English portion of both classrooms. On top of this, Sandra is a mom with 2 children, a household to maintain, and is in school for her master’s degree.

She also had to have surgery during this time. She took on this responsibility because she did not want the students to suffer. Instead, she was the one who took the hit. Staying up until 3am getting things done, working through her lunches, missing her kid’s activities. All while not getting paid any more than she normally did. Sandra is a rock star, a superhero. All of her students absolutely love her. She still came to work with a smile on her face and was greeted with warm hugs from her students and thank you letters from her parents. Sandra is not the teacher of the week in my opinion, but the teacher of the year!