When St. Joseph’s School Principal Marcela Hernández shared the opportunity to enter the Take A Stand Against Bullying Video Contest, 5th grade teacher Erika Delgado and her class immediately started to brainstorm. The students, ages 10 and 11, shared that it’s always hard being the new kid in school or being the student that is excluded from activities and games. They created a huge poster with the words “It begins with me” to explain that any change that we want to see has to start first with ourselves and set about creating a one minute and thirty second video. It took 2 days to film and 1 day to edit. On February 5, a representative from Scholastic National Partnerships informed Erika that her students’ video had been selected as a Grand Prize Winner of the Take A Stand Against Bullying Video Contest and shared, “The Scholastic and Oxy teams were so impressed with the caliber of work; your students should be very proud!”

Delgado was named 2019 Diocesan Teacher of the Year at the annual awards banquet on Thursday, April 4 at the El Paso Zoo. Chosen by her peers as the school’s Teacher of the Year, she competed against 10 other teachers from across the Diocese of El Paso, the best of the best, for this year’s Diocesan Teacher of the Year Award. Erika Delgado will now compete for the State of Texas Catholic Teacher of the Year in the Fall of 2019.

Erika is preparing students for the future through the use of technology and innovation and empowering them with the tools they need to be successful, critical thinkers.

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