Julie L. Figueroa
(University of California, Santa Cruz)

Julie Figueroa is a second year doctoral student in the Social and Cultural Studies program at UC Berkeley in the School of Education and received her M. A. from UC Santa Cruz in Education. Her areas of specialization are instructional strategies, multicultural education, and policy with respect to culturally and linguistically diverse students. Upon completing her doctoral degree, Julie plans to purse a career as an educational researcher continuing her work with teachers and students in the pursuit of understand theory and practice.

Over the last six years, Julie has worked on a variety of projects that study the academic performance of Latino students such as the Latino Eligibility Study (LES), The Bridging Project, and the Optimal Learning Environment (O.L.E.) Project. These projects focused on understand educational policy in relation to theory and practice particularly at the elementary, high school and college levels . Julie has also worked with other teacher educators as a coordinator for A.R.B.O.L. (Academically Responsive Bilingual Opportunities for Learning), a summer program for bilingual teachers. Presently working with Dr. Eugene Garcia, Chair of the LES and her academic adviser, and Dr. Aida Hurtado, the Research Director of the LES, Julie is completing a paper on Latina academic success for the Latino Eligibility Study for an upcoming monograph.

Coupled with these research experiences, Julie also volunteers in the community serving as a group leader for a leadership summer camp for inner city Latino youth, has done an in-service for teachers and administrators for the East Side Union High School District, and has mentored high school students over the last four years.

Erminda H. Garcia
(Fairmount Elementary, San Francisco USD)

Erminda Garcia is a bilingual first grade teacher at Fairmount Elementary, San Francisco, California. She has taught for over twenty years. The majority of her teaching has been in early elementary bilingual classrooms. She has taught in Utah, Arizona, Washington, D.C. and California. Erminda has also worked as a literacy consultant across the United States for the last 10 years. She has been both director and instructor for the summer Biliteracy Institutes held throughout California. She has co-authored articles focused on classroom management, authentic assessment, biliteracy development and conditions that optimal learning for all students.

Erminda was chosen Ambassador of Teaching Excellence for the State of Arizona in 1985 and selected Chairperson of the Early Schooling Task Force, National Standards Project of English Language Arts, 1992-94. Erminda is a member of the Language Commission of the National Council of English and a past member of the Board of Directors for the National Center for Research on Writing and Literacy at UC Berkeley. she was a Literacy '95 author for D.C. Heath and a Solares author for Scholastic Publishing Company. Most recently, Erminda's video titled Profile of Effective Bilingual Teaching: First Grade by the National Center for Research on Cultural Diversity and Second Language Learning won the Silver Apple Award from the 1995 National Education Media Network as an outstanding film in Teaching, Learning and Professional Development