News and Announcements

Teacher Recruitment Program graduate Revathi Balakrishnan named Texas Teacher of the Year

Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA), which facilitates the Texas Teacher of the Year program has named Revathi Balakrishna, a talented and gifted specialist in Round Rock ISD, as the 2016 Elementary Teacher of the Year. Ms. Balakrishnan was chosen to represent Texas in the National Teacher of the Year competition.

“Creating a workforce that can adapt itself to ever-changing workplace conditions calls for innovative approaches, and teachers, administrators and government officials who are visionaries,” said Revathi Balakrishnan, the 2016 Texas Teacher of the Year and a talented and gifted (TAG) specialist at Patsy Sommer Elementary School in Round Rock ISD. “Every child is a unique individual, depending on all of us to provide them with a comprehensive education that will make them competitive in the global workplace. And we owe them nothing less.”

Balakrishnan, who has taught for 10 years, is a second-career educator, having first spent 12 years as a systems analyst. She said she hopes the recognition she has received as a campus, district, region, and now Texas Elementary Teacher of the Year, will inspire others to join the teaching profession, which she has described as complex but satisfying.

“I hope that my rewarding experiences will convince people of underrepresented ethnicities to follow in my footsteps and enter this noble profession,” said Balakrishnan, who emigrated from India 30 years ago. “My own daughter did, saying, ‘I see you come home from work every day, excited for the new day to begin. I want the same for myself.’”

Balakrishnan is the founder of the Shakespeare Support Group for TAG teachers and the Round Rock ISD Shakespeare Festival, and she is a member of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the Texas Association for Gifted and Talented (TAGT). In 2011, she was chosen the Region 13 TAGT Teacher of the Year.

Balakrishan earned her teacher certification through the Teacher Recruitment Program at the Round Rock campus of Texas State University.  

(Story taken from the Texas State University's Department of Curriculum and Instruction website, http://www.education.txstate.edu/ci/news/Student-News-And-Accomplishments) 

Congratulations to Texas State Round Rock Campus’ Dr. Araceli Ortiz

Dr. Ortiz, a RRC Rising Star in December of 2013, is the principal investigator in a grant from NASA to advance teacher training nationwide in science, technology, engineering and math, with special focus on minority groups. This grant is the largest in the Texas State History!