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Velazco Named Teacher of the Year
3/29/2007
 Ludivina “Alejandra” Velazco’s mother brought her five young daughters to Houston more than 20 years ago from their home in Jalisco, Mexico, determined for them to have a better life than their native country offered. One of the main things Glenda Gutierrez wanted for her children was the education she never had.
“My mother could have been a lawyer, a psychologist – anything,” Velazco said. “Because of the circumstances she found herself in, she couldn’t pursue her own education, but she has it in her.”
Instead, her mother, who had been widowed seven years earlier when Velazco was a toddler, worked to support her family and was a one-woman cheering squad for her daughters’ education.
Despite the challenges of moving to a country that spoke English, which Velazco learned on a fast track in bilingual classes at Braeburn Elementary, she worked her way into the Junior National Honor Society by seventh grade, and later gained a steady place in the National Honor Society at Bellaire High School. She graduated suma cum laude from the UST’s School of Education in 2003 as a member of the international honor society in education.
Who was proudest? Her mom. And, of course, her four sisters: Fatima, Carmen, Glenda and Marisa.
“Because of her, I have always been really focused on my studies and always dedicated to education,” Velazco said. “I can remember every single milestone.”
She recently earned her latest honor – that of Bilingual Teacher of the Year – at Bonner Elementary School where she teaches 22 first-graders. She teaches the core classes – math, language arts and Spanish – in Spanish, and social studies and science in English.
Now she competes among other teachers who earned that title at their respective schools within the Houston Independent School District.
And at the same time she excels at her strenuous job, the 31-year-old teacher is working toward her master’s degree in the School of Education at UST under Sr. Marie Faubert CSJ, a professor and director, Counselor Education Program.
“She is a wonderful person, and I am very happy that people have recognized her gift, because her classroom is a joy to watch,” Sr. Faubert said. “She’s skilled way beyond her years of experience.
“She is in touch with her students’ feelings and helps connect them to their behavior,” she said. “She works with her little ones to change their behavior by inspiring them instead of punishing them because she has a deep respect for them.”
Velazco hopes to use her master’s degree to become a counselor in education. She is the first member of her family to graduate from college.
All of this happened, she says, because of her mother.
“I am what I am and I’ve gotten this far because of my mother,” she says. “She’s been such a blessing to me in her dedication to always putting us first.”
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