Encinitas has a noteworthy tradition of recognizing and honoring its teachers through the Teacher of the Year program. The Teacher of the Year program celebrates and pays special tribute to the tireless efforts of our outstanding teachers. In doing so, the program brings well-deserved recognition to the whole teaching staff in the Encinitas Union School District.

This year, each school site selected a Teacher of the Year. These outstanding teachers include:

(photo not available) Camille Crill Capri	Linda Verga El Camino Creek	Germaine Jakosalem Flora Vista
Natalie Christ La Costa Heights	Mayla Guth Mission Estancia	Susan Hull Ocean Knoll
Margie Wilhelm Olivenhain Pioneer	Steffi Ulrich Park Dale Lane	Judy Leff Paul Ecke Central

Judy Leff is this year's District Teacher of the Year! Judy has been teaching in the Encinitas Union School District for 30 years. She has been nominated for this honor by her colleagues several times over the years at a number of Encinitas schools. Judy is a master at her craft. She is bilingual and meets the needs of students and parents in both English and Spanish. She has taught all grade levels and currently teaches a 4/5 combo transition class, a 5/6 combo language arts class, and she teaches 6^th grade Social Studies in the afternoon. Judy does it all - she spans many grade levels so that as many students as possible have the privilege of her talents and her care.

Judy has been a fellow of the Writing Project out of UCSD for 19 years and has guided the Paul Ecke Central staff in effective process writing with their students. She gives of her time after school to coach other teachers in the teaching of writing, and she opens her classroom doors for teachers to observe her language arts program which is extremely dynamic. Judy incorporates the discrete skills and grade level standards into an environment where students discuss topics, explore reality and design products about which they care.

In the past few years, Judy has moved into using a multimedia approach to teaching where her lessons are directed through an LCD projector and powered by her laptop. For the transition students, she manipulates language visually on the big screen so students learn effective organization of writing, forming paragraphs and use of vocabulary. Her Social Studies lessons are presented through her personal website homepage where she makes links to information on the web for her students to utilize. In addition to using technology as a tool that brings instruction alive for students, Judy is teaching students to utilize the computer as a life long tool for research, information gathering and sharing, communicating, and use of images and graphics for presentations.

Judy creates relationships with students and parents under an umbrella of mutual respect and care for one another. She is frequently visited by past students and revered by parents.