Yajaira Fuentes-Tauber, a science teacher at Rocky Mountain High School, received a Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, the White House and National Science Foundation announced in news releases.
Award recipients will receive $10,000 from the National Science Foundation, a certificate signed by President Joe Biden and a trip to Washington, D.C., to celebrate their accomplishments.
The award, established by Congress in 1983, “honors individuals and organizations that have demonstrated excellence in mentoring individuals from groups that are underrepresented in STEM education and the workforce,” the White House news release said.
Recipients are selected by the National Science Foundation on behalf of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, according to the award’s website, from a pool of nominees vetted by a national committee. Nominations come from colleagues, administrators and students “for exemplary mentoring sustained over a minimum of five years,” the White House news release said.
Fuentes-Tauber was born in Mexico and said she “knew zero English” when her family immigrated to Brownsville, Texas, when she was in seventh grade. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in biology, master’s degree in science education and doctorate in organizational leadership and has been teaching for 18 years, the past four at Rocky Mountain High School. Courses she is teaching this year, according to her biography on the school’s website, are biology, zoology and 21st century science.
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She said she believes she was selected primarily because of her background and ability to serve as a role model for students.
“By being a teacher, primarily,” she said Wednesday. “Just having the students see themselves represented. And more than how I look, but then sharing my experiences.”
Fuentes-Tauber said she never had the opportunity to see people like her, with a similar background, in her own educational journey. And that motivated her to keep going.
“Even when I did my EDD, my doctorate in education, it was also part of trying to be the person that I feel like I didn’t have for me. Because even though I grew up in south Texas once I moved from Mexico, people didn’t share the same experiences that I had. Just because somebody may, perhaps, look like me, they had no experience what it was like to be an immigrant or to be an English-learner.”
Winners can use the prize money however they choose, National Science Foundation spokesperson Michelle Negron said in an email. Fuentes-Tauber said she hopes to put most of it into a college fund for her 7-year-old son.
The 336 winners — 112 each year — for 2021, 2022 and 2023 were announced simultaneously this week. Fuentes-Tauber was one of two 2023 winners and one of six in the three-year period from Colorado. She was nominated by a colleague in 2022, she said.
Fuentes-Tauber is the second teacher at Rocky Mountain High School to win a Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching, joining Edward Waterman who was honored in 1987, and only the third winner ever from Poudre School District, according to a list on the award’s website. Patricia Bell, a teacher at Shepardson Elementary School, was honored in 2001. More than 5,200 winners have been selected since the award’s inception.
The other award winner for 2023 from Colorado was Sidney Cerise, a math teacher at Early College Academy in Greeley. Colorado’s 2021 winners were Linda Flohr, a science teacher at Glenwood Springs High School who is now an assistant principal at West Middle School in Grand Junction; and Jacob Thompson, an instructional technology teacher at STEM Lab in Northglenn. The state’s 2022 winners were Amanda Jaquette, a math teacher at Brown International Academy in Denver; and Autumn Rivera, a science teacher at Glenwood Springs Middle School.
Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, x.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Teacher at Rocky Mountain High School receives presidential award