The Isla Vista School, where Marjorie Ryckman teaches
Four of the nine people named Distinguished Teachers by the Goleta Unified School District (GUSD) are graduates of the Teacher Education Program at UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz School. The four, who earned their Multiple Subject Teaching (MST) credential at UCSB, are:
Susan Hughes – Brandon School, Grade 6; MST & M.Ed. ’95
D.J. Perry – El Camino School, Grade 3; MST ’83
Marjorie Ryckman – Isla Vista School, Grade 4; MST ’94, M.Ed. ’96
Amanda Sweigart – Ellwood School, Grades 5/6; MST & M.Ed. ’06
In addition to these honors, Marjorie Ryckman was named as the District’s first annual Distinguished Teacher. Ryckman was selected by her peers at Isla Vista Elementary School. All nine GUSD principals, plus administrators from the district office, participated in a process to select one teacher from among the nine school sites to be GUSD’s first Distinguished Teacher in 2014. Ryckman will also become GUSD’s nominee for Santa Barbara County Teacher of the Year for 2014-2015.
Each teacher was selected by meeting several criteria established by the California Department of Education for the State Teacher of the Year. The criteria include requirements that the nominee have a minimum of eight years of teaching experience and spend a majority of their time instructing students. In GUSD, the school site Distinguished Teachers all met these criteria and were considered by their peers to be outstanding representatives of the excellence, dedication, and passion for teaching that defines GUSD’s teaching ranks. “These are not the ‘best’ teachers in the District and they didn’t seek out the honor,” says Superintendent William Banning. “These are simply terrific representatives who have been selected by their peers to represent the exemplary work that goes on in each of our classrooms every day.”