Fillmore Unified School District

Diana Vides was born on November 15, 1970 in Kingsburg, CA. and is the eldest of five children born to an immigrant from Abasolo, Guanajuato, and a Texan father. She was raised in Orosi, California, a small rural community between Dinuba and Visalia, California. Orosi is an agricultural town that cultivates a myriad of crops including grapes, oranges, and peaches.

As a child she has very fond memories of working alongside her parents in the fields. Most memorable of these is picking olives in October right before the Fresno Fair and wrapping up her summers by picking table grapes, or better know as "la tabla". She worked in the packing house in high school and cleaned apartments in college. Working difficult jobs has molded her into the person she has become. She knows the value of hard work and understands the struggles that it takes to get ahead.

Coupled with these valuable lessons was the privilege she had to count on nurturing parents that showered her with love and support. She was always given an opportunity to focus on education. She enjoyed competing with other students in high school and thrived on receiving report cards with straight A's. Consequently, she finished as salutatorian in her graduating high school class.

A graduate of UC Davis with a Bachelors in Spanish, she relocated to Los Angeles in 1993 to enter the credential program at CSUN. She worked as a bilingual teacher in an LA Unified school and taught for 7 years. She has been an intervention teacher, ELL/ Title I coordinator, literacy coach, LEAD intern and assistant principal.

She has the honor of being the principal at Piru Elementary school, her little paradise. She is extremely honored to be the recipient of the ConnectED Apple award. This grant will give equity and access to her community at large and create a change in teaching and learning through the use of devices. Every Piru student will receive an iPad and every credentialed teacher will receive a MacBook. She is ecstatic at the possibilities it presents her students and the prospects that it gives her create an institution that embraces technology through transformational learning.

Fillmore also presented her with the honor of becoming the coordinator for the migrant program. This program supported her as I a child and now supports children that travel the same path she once followed. Every day she has the opportunity to give back to the community all the support and resources that were given to her. She is an example of how hard work, motivation and determination can get you anywhere you want to go in life.