December Ignite Passion Award Winner - Angela Ponzio, OCMS Spanish Teacher

Last year, Angela. Ponzio joined the OCMS team as a Bilingual Instructional Aide. While she was exceptional in this role, her heart yearned to teach Spanish.

This year she became a full-time Spanish teacher and she has done a marvelous job. She brings such energy and passion to the classroom and students love being in her class. Each class period, students line up outside of her room and answer or respond in Spanish to a question she asks. Students are practicing and getting ready before they even get to her class. We hear students walking the halls and speaking and practicing their Spanish during class changes.

Ms. Ponzio does a lot of call and response and hand gestures to help build vocabulary fluency. The students enthusiastically participate and their vocabulary grows daily. During the job interview, Mrs. Ponzio said that her goal was to make the OCMS Spanish program the model for the district. With the passion and dedication she brings each and every day, we have no doubt that will be the case.