Sylvia Padilla has been a bilingual teacher for the past 20 years. She currently teaches fourth grade in the two-way bilingual immersion program at Patrick Henry K-8 School in the Long Beach Unified School District. She has been awarded Los Angeles County Teacher of the Year and California Association of Bilingual Education Teacher of the Year for collaborating at the school, district and state level to improve instruction, implementation and assessment of state standards in English and Spanish. Sra. Padilla earned her bachelor and Master of Arts degrees from California State University, Long Beach.