Gracie De La Cruz is a powerful role model for her first grade students. She is teaching at Gallardo Elementary in
the neighborhood where she grew up. Villa Coronado is a small community in the Southside of San Antonio. She wanted to work with children from her neighborhood. It helps her relate to her students in a special way.
"Sometimes people look at the Southside and don't see all the success we have here. I tell my students if I can do it, you can do it," says De La Cruz. Her goal is to make her students strong readers and she does that by making reading and writing fun. She has students draw an alien using adjectives she provides. "She's the best," says first grader Genesis Reyna. "T Gracie De La Cruz likes teaching in a smaller school district where she can follow her students academic career. "Working in Southside has really helped me not only see my kids in First grade but throughout until they graduate high school. I get to see the outcome and the I see the difference I make," De La Cruz said. This is her fourteenth year teaching. "A lot of the kids I've had in my classroom, I've had their siblings," De La Cruz said. First grader Rebecca Sanchez's brother and sister were students of Ms. De La Cruz. "They told me she was a good teacher. They all like her," said Sanchez. "It's great when my students come back and say Ms. De La Cruz you look exactly the same way. It gives me the motivation to keep teaching for another 20 -30 years," she laughed. That's just what you want to hear from an award winning teacher.
