The 2021-22 Community Fellows: Betsabe Lopez Morales (top left), Yesenia Munoz (top right), Esmeralda Reyes (bottom left), and Jessica Zamora Sanchez (bottom right)
Four UC Santa Barbara Teacher Education Program students—Betsabe Lopez Morales, Yesenia Munoz, Esmeralda Reyes, and Jessica Zamora Sanchez—are the current PEAC Community Fellows. They are the third cohort of an innovative program that recruits teacher candidates from underserved backgrounds who wish to teach in their community. The Community Fellows Initiative offers a fellowship that covers all expenses of attending UC Santa Barbara’s top-ranked Teacher Education Program, a support system through the rigorous 12-month program, and access to professional networks that position the fellows for teaching jobs in local schools upon completion of their teaching credential.
The initiative was established in partnership with the James S. Bower Foundation and the Santa Barbara Unified School District (SBUSD) and is generously funded by key donors including the James S. Bower Foundation, the Santa Barbara Education Foundation, the Helen and Will Webster Foundation, Peggy and Dick Lamb, faculty and staff of the Gevirtz School, and an array of alumni and community members.
Community Teaching Fellowships
Community Teaching Fellowships provide full funding to Gevirtz School TEP candidates wanting to teach in their home community. There is a selection preference for candidates from the Santa Barbara area or neighboring regions, who are from underserved backgrounds, are first-generation college students, and/or are bi/multilingual, and wish to work for a school district in the Santa Barbara area or neighboring regions.
PEAC Community Teaching Fellowships
PEAC Community Teaching Fellowships provide full funding to Gevirtz School TEP candidates wanting to teach in their local community. There is a selection preference for graduates of SBUSD’s Program for Effective Access to College (PEAC) and want to work in SBUSD. This fellowship supports candidates from an underserved background who are first-generation college students, and/or bi/multilingual.
“By placing these highly trained educational professionals in their home communities, this initiative aims to create a pipeline for underserved members of our community to fulfill their passion to serve in the education workforce,” says Jeffrey Milem, Jules Zimmer Dean of the Gevirtz School. “This program also increases the odds that the fellows will be enmeshed in personal and professional networks that can help guard against the early career challenges of entering the education workforce.”
Betsabe Lopez Morales is pursuing a Single Subject Teaching Credential in Social Studies and a Master’s in Education. She graduated as a Royal from San Marcos High School and as a first-generation college student from UCSB in 2021 with a B.A. in Sociology. She is forever thankful to the amazing teachers and community members that guided her along the way, and is passionate about returning to the Santa Barbara Unified School District as a teacher in order to give back to the community that has given so much to her. Lopez Morales hopes to become a social studies teacher that challenges systemic barriers to student success and hopes to create a critical thinking environment for her students to thrive.
Yesenia Munoz is pursuing a Master’s in Education and Single Subject Teaching Credential in Science. She was born and raised in Santa Barbara, CA. She graduated from UCLA with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Although she has enjoyed her career as a nurse, she realized that becoming an educator is also one of her passions. She believes that her unique experience as a nurse can help in her role as educator to promote the wellbeing of students. In nursing school, she was a volunteer skills laboratory mentor, and taught first year students how to achieve competency in clinical skills. It was here she discovered how much she loves teaching. She also has experience working with youth at Girls Inc. of Greater Santa Barbara and at the UCLA Lab School. Yesenia hopes to give back to her community and teach science at a middle school or biology and health education at a high school.
Esmeralda Reyes is pursuing a Single subject Teaching Credential in Mathematics and Master’s in Education. In 2021, Reyes received her B.S. in Mathematics from California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo. Through countless hours tutoring low-income elementary students in Santa Barbara and teaching in small group instruction in a 9th grade Algebra 1 class at Paso Robles High School, Reyes saw the need to advocate for these students. She is passionate about fighting systemic racism and other barriers which uphold the status quo by providing equitable and high-quality education to all students. She hopes to use her personal experience to empower students to excel in math classrooms and beyond.
Jessica Zamora Sanchez is pursuing a Master’s in Education and Multiple Subject Teaching Credential. She graduated from CSU Channel Islands in the Fall of 2020 with a B.A in Early Childhood Studies. Zamora Sanchez immigrated to the United States from Mexico when she was seven years old. She grew up in Santa Barbara and graduated from San Marcos High School. She continued her involvement with the Santa Barbara Unified School District and worked as a tutor at a junior high school and a mentor for the PEAC Program. The combination of her undergraduate studies as well as her professional endeavors led her to realizing she wanted to be an elementary school teacher. Growing up in a bicultural world, she realized the beauty and value of home languages and became passionate about bilingual education. Her goal is to acquire her Bilingual Authorization and work at a dual immersion school.
The SBUnified Program for Effective Access to College (PEAC) is a 7 to 12th grade system of support for low-income, first generation college-bound students to prepare them for college entry by providing access to academic and socio-emotional support. In an effort to extend such support beyond students’ matriculation to a 4-year institution, the PEAC Community Fellowships for Education create a seamless pathway for college graduates who aspire to teach. Patricia Madrigal, who oversees the district’s PEAC efforts, explains that “once the Fellows earn their teaching credential and are placed in an SBUnified school, they are in essence coming home.” The PEAC Fellowship is in honor and memory of beloved educator Jo Ann Caines.
The Santa Barbara Unified School District serves over 13,500 students from Preschool - 12th grade and launched the PEAC college readiness and access program in 2011. The mission of SBUnified is to prepare students for a world that is yet to be created, visit www.sbunified.org
The Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at UC Santa Barbara is comprised of the Department of Counseling, Clinical and School Psychology, the Department of Education, and the Teacher Education Program. It is a hub of educational innovation with world-class research produced by distinguished faculty and exceptional graduate students. The Teacher Education Program was named a “California’s Asset” in the 2012 governor’s State Educator Excellence Task Force Report.