Fillmore Chamber of Commerce would like to congratulate Laura Todis for receiving Teacher of the Year for 2012. Thank you for all you do for our community.

Overall, Ms. Todis is an exemplary teacher. She is highly organized, professional and knowledgeable about her subject area. She is an outstanding model of teaching and classroom management strategies that promote learning and student achievement. She gets along well with her peers and is a great addition to the SHS “Team” and the Fillmore Unified School District. I always look forward to visiting Ms. Todis’s classroom because she makes Science relevant and fun for all levels of students, thus engaging students in the learning process.

Sierra High School is an alternative high school program for students who have not been successful in traditional high school settings. Since coming to Sierra Ms. Todis has greatly impacted the ability of ALL students to be successful in Science by created a project-based curriculum that is aligned to the State Standards.

Ms. Todis promotes student engagement with Science by making Science “hands-on,” relevant and interesting. In all her courses Ms. Todis brings Science “alive” by taking outside the confines of the classroom. For example, as a part of Ms. Todis’ Environmental Science course Sierra students have designed and created a native plant habitat on the Sierra campus. Students regularly use this habitat as a basis for scientific inquiry and to study scientific concepts.

Ms. Todis inspires students to pursue further education in science and science related careers and has successfully collaborated with the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife. She regularly supplements her science courses with guest speakers including local Biologists and field trips that are part of her project based curriculum. Additionally, she encourages students to pursue extra-curricular opportunities in science. Sierra students have been successfully placed in volunteer, intern and employment placements and many have gone on inspired to study science in college.

District-wide, Ms. Todis is spearheading the collaboration with the Department of Fish and Wildlife and K-12 teachers. Her role is to train teachers in aligning their Science Standards with the River Restoration Project that includes teaching students about the natural habitat and conducting scientific experiments and documenting their data. Students and Teachers will track their scientific data and study the impact of Global Warming, Urbanization and other factors on the local habitat.

In her three years at Sierra Ms. Todis has greatly improved the Science program. As a Principal I recognize Ms. Todis’ exceptional ability to inspire students to learn and her potential to model teaching strategies and innovative curriculum to other science teachers.