2011
Award Winners
Ziomara Perez
Nettelhorst School, Chicago
Preschool
Watch Zio on the WGN News segment about the 2011 winners.
Watch Zio on the ABC News segment about her non-profit organization and her Kohl McCormick Award.
Listen to Zio on WBEZ's "Worldview."
Ziomara Perez grew up on Chicago's North Side. Her single mother had emigrated from Guatemala, and spoke Spanish. “My mother was the first to tap into my strengths for reading and writing by teaching me Spanish,” Perez said. “That all came from home.” Now Perez wishes to campaign, both to educate parents that they can help their children develop English-language skills simply by being a strong advocate for any language skills, and also to enlighten her fellow teachers to this insight.
“When a child sees his or her parent reading—a newspaper, a book, anything—it demonstrates to the child that reading is important, that it's what adults do,” said Perez. “I would emulate my mother, reading everything she brought into the house. Then I would lock myself in the bathroom and pretend to be a TV reporter.” Then, at her grade school, Perez would transfer those same habits to her English-language learning.
This philosophy—that a child's development can be encouraged through language—is one of Perez’s guiding principles. She aims to help immigrant parents gain confidence in knowing: That they can overcome any learning "barrier." Key to that goal is empowering families to move past the commonly held belief that ethnicity and language prohibit them from accessing opportunities afforded every United States citizen. Perez is currently teaching in a preschool classroom at Nettelhorst School in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood.
Perez fell in love with teaching at Lane Tech High School, where she joined the Future Teachers club. After high school, she was recruited by Golden Apple for their Scholars of Illinois program, through which she attended summer trainings and was given a teacher-mentor. With this support, she earned her bachelor's degree in early childhood education from National Louis University in 1997, and her master's in child development from the Erikson Institute. Perez is scheduled to receive her second master's—in educational leadership—from the American College of Education this June.
When she pursued—and achieved—National Board certification, Perez encouraged two other teachers to join her. She joined the editorial board of Catalyst Chicago, an independent magazine that reports on urban schools, in order to insert early childhood education into the K-12 education policy discussion. And after a summer trip to South Africa—funded by a grant she won from the Chicago Foundation for Education—she started SwaziKids International, a 501(c)(3) that raises funds for school children in Swaziland. Initially, they raised funds to purchase school supplies for 50 children; since then, they have funded the development of a classroom library in a school that had no books, and sponsored tuition, uniforms, and supplies for three children to attend school.