The theme of this year's Equity and Human Rights Conference in San Diego was "We Are One Human Family." In addition to taking advantage of a full schedule of workshops, conference participants honored fellow CTA members for their efforts toward teaching people what it means to be one human family.
Two CTA Human Rights Awards were presented to Marilyn Landau, a member of United Teachers Los Angeles who serves on CTA's Board of Directors. One was a CTA member award and one the Women's Issues Award. Lenore Navarro Dowling, a member of the Rio Hondo College Faculty Association, also received a Human Rights Award for a member.
Landau was honored for her service as liaison to the Civil Rights in Education Committee for nine years, for working diligently to ensure that human and civil rights issues are at the forefront of the Association's agenda, and for championing the rights of at-risk students, gay and lesbian teachers and students, and disabled teachers and students.
The winners of CTA's Human Rights Awards are (back row, from left) Cassandra Weiner, Robert Thomas Mata, E. Wiley Reeves III, Ann Dowling, Jim Woodhead, and (front row from left) Marilyn Landau and Lenore Navarro Dowling. Accepting for Donna Pierson-Pugh is Adam Springwater (right).
The Women's Issues award recognized Landau's work with the CTA Women's Caucus and the Women's Leadership Training Program. She has worked to gain a greater voice for women inside and outside of the organization. She is a former Regional Director for the California Democratic Party.
Dowling is actively involved in numerous community organizations that promote peace and human rights. As a board member of Chrysalis, she helps to prepare and train homeless, unemployed and underemployed workers. She also donates her time to Alexandria House, a homeless shelter for women and children, as well as to the Blythe Street Project, a community center providing education, health and empowerment programs to poor, mainly Latino populations.
Robert Thomas Mata (also known as Three Bears) won the American Indian/Alaska Native Human Rights Award. A member of the McFarland Teachers Association, he belongs to the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation. Through an elective course on Native American Culture he developed for McFarland Middle School, sixth-graders get in touch with native culture through such activities as making medicine bags and rattles, playing native games, dancing and singing traditional songs. Mata participated in the reburial of the ancestors at Morro Bay and works at the Santa Barbara Museum Mission on a family history research project. He has been an active supporter of Indian gaming rights, the effort to preserve the Carrizo Plain and the California Advisory Council on Indian Policy Issues dealing with Native fishing rights.
Donna Pierson-Pugh, a member of Anderson Valley Teachers Association, won the Cesar Chavez "Si Se Puede" Human Rights Award. A bilingual classroom teacher, bilingual resource teacher and K-12 Title VII Coordinator, she has been active in developing a curriculum continuum for Hispanic students from preschool to high school and in strengthening the Bilingual Advisory Committee, which provides a forum for parents to interact with the school. She also coordinates Even Start, Migrant Education and the Adult School. Through numerous cultural events, she enhances awareness in the community and ensures full participation of the Hispanic community at all school functions.
In addition, she has developed Spanish as a Second Language programs for English speakers and community-based English tutoring programs, and worked on Spanish language programming with the local public radio station.
Cassandra Weiner, a member of the Association of Placentia-Linda Educators, won the Lois Tinson Human Rights Award for actively promoting diversity and tolerance throughout her career. She advises Kraemer Middle School's E-Race program, an intercultural club promoting tolerance, and spent five years as a volunteer trainer for the NEA Cultural Diversity Cadre and 10 years as a trainer for the Anti-Defamation League's "A World of Difference." She started a Pregnant Teen Moms program in the district, served on Maxine Water's Teen Pregnancy Prevention Task Force and developed the "Parents Have the Power" educational program for the Black Women's Forum.
E. Wiley Reeves III, a member of the Soledad Teachers Association, won the Nancy Bailey Leadership in Lesbian and Gay Human Rights Award. An elementary school teacher in Monterey County, he strives to create a safe learning environment where all diversity is valued and respected. A trainer for the AIDS 101 program and Heartspring's Peacebuilder Program, he also developed the district's playground conflict manager program, which is designed to reduce name-calling and violence. He also works as a hospice griefbuster, helping youth who have suffered a loss. Reeves founded the Monterey County Chapter of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and is the education director for Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).
James Woodhead, a member of the Newark Teachers Association, won the Physically/Mentally Challenged Students' Issues Human Rights Award. He teaches communicatively disabled preschool students at the June Whiteford School in Newark. He serves as NTA's director for special education and as CTA's liaison to the Advisory Commission on Special Education and the General Education/Special Education Integration Task Force. He also co-chaired the CTA Task Force that produced "Foundations for Excellence in Special Education."
Also winning the Physically/ Mentally Challenged Students' Issues Human Rights Award was Ann Dowling, a member of the Livermore Education Association. She has worked to provide equal educational opportunities for disabled, bilingual and regular education students. She has worked as a team teacher with colleagues to provide greater curriculum opportunities for all students. Committed to eliminating discrimination against individuals with special needs or disabilities, she provides her students with ample opportunities to shine.
