UTSA doctoral student named secondary teacher of year

(Oct. 3, 2003)--UTSA doctoral student Laura Aten recently was honored with the KENS 5/SACU (San Antonio Federal Credit Union) Golden Apple ExCEL Award for excellence in secondary teaching.

She will appear with the winner of the Region 20 elementary teacher of the year on KENS-TV at 7:15 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 18, to talk about the award and her teaching experiences.

Pictured is (center) Laura Aten receiving the ExCEL award and a $1,000 check from (left) Deborah Knapp, KENS 5 news anchor, and (right) Janet Mata, branch manager and assistant vice president of the SACU Southside branch.

The KENS 5/SACU ExCEL award is given annually to a teacher in each San Antonio school district. Last spring, Aten was selected as the East Central ISD teacher of the year.

"These have been exciting opportunities to share the positive side of teaching with the public," said Aten. "I've been having a lot of fun, and I appreciate the support along the way from the College of Education and Human Development."

Aten, who teaches seventh- and eighth-grade English language arts at Heritage Middle School, also was recently honored as the Region 20 secondary teacher of the year, and was the Region 20 nominee for Texas teacher of the year. Region 20 is the Education Service Center (ESC) for a 15-county region of South Texas which serves fifty school districts.

Aten is a UTSA doctoral student in educational leadership and policy studies and plans to defend her dissertation in October and graduate in December.

She attended UTSA in 1984 as a high school senior taking freshman classes and went on to earn a bachelor's degree from Texas A&M University. Aten attended UTSA again in 1989 and completed a master's degree at the University of Houston.

Her husband, Donald Aten, earned both of his degrees at UTSA -- a bachelor's degree in finance in 1989 and an M.B.A. in 2001.

Read more about Laura Aten at the KENS 5 Web site.