 My name is Alexandra Castano-Smith. I'm a teacher at Sandra Senior High. I teach English. I used to teach ESL, Spanish, and Latinos in action. Alex is inspiring. She is innovative. And she is inclusive. And those words just capture everything about who she is and why she is the best of us as an educator. You would want to be friends with Alexandra Smith. She is flexible and nimble. She is smart and funny. She is creative and delightful. And to be in her classroom is just a gift. I would want the world to be in her classroom and to share in the experience that her students have every day. I love working with Alexandra. I love working with her as a colleague. And I love working with her in professional development. Alex has been our Latinos in action teacher for the past three years. That's where she works with students, Latino students, and helps give them leadership skills. It gives the students a chance to lead in their own community. Latinos in action gives students the opportunity to take leadership here at school. They're considered student leaders and they act as such. She's very passionate about that and the work they do, which includes, you know, tutoring at elementary schools, working at homeless shelters, serving as like an advocacy and awareness organization. Well, the importance is that we grow our own leaders. We grow leaders who are going to get in the classroom. Alexandra is really good at making things meaningful and pertinent to students in their education. She always is doing these projects and they are always connecting kids to a bigger world outside of Sandridge. She's very passionate about equity, very passionate about engaging with students from all backgrounds. I let them know from the day they walk in that this is a classroom, this is a safe space, this is where you can talk to me. I'm not going to judge you and, in fact, you can see me making mistakes all the time. You can see me being a human being every day and that's totally okay. I've got signs all over my room about it. She doesn't want students to go through some of the hard things she went through. She wants a really safe, comfortable space where learning is celebrated and expected and also failure is okay too. And I think even if we're uncomfortable, if we can show the kids that we're not uncomfortable or that we're comfortable in that discomfort, they will meet us there. How do we see Alex growing in the years to come? I'm just amazed at her power and influence at such an early stage in her career right now. Wherever she chooses to continue that path, she is going to thrive. Alexander Smith is not going to let anybody stop her from achieving her goals. Every single child that's in our country deserves an education and the promise is that we're going to give it to them and we're going to give them a quality education and we'll be there to make sure that they're okay and getting all the tools they need to succeed later on in life as well.