826 Valencia is proud to announce that our January teacher of the month is Jessica Tedesco!

Ms. Tedesco is a third grade teacher at Edison Charter Academy, having taught there for four years. According to fellow educators, Ms. Tedesco is “very consistent in the classroom and adored by students. She also does extremely well communicating with parents.”

One of Tedesco’s former students said that “she’s very nice. And she told my mom that she liked me in her classroom.”

In addition to classroom teaching, Ms. Tedesco’s also a curriculum-coordinator, coaching fellow teachers in providing math instruction. Her students also recall that she is an expert mathematics teacher.

“In math she helped me add, subtract multiply,” a student said. “She explained it to me. All the other teachers would usually not explain it to you enough, but she would explain it to you so that I could really understand what it meant.”

Another of Tedesco’s current students echoed that sentiment: “We’re learning about right angles. She teaches it so that it’s easy to get.”

Ms. Tedesco’s students occasionally venture beyond the classroom walls, including a recent trip to Pier 39.

“We went on a ferry boat,” one of her students said. “We got to see where the captain was. And the ocean was cold.”

Another previous student of Ms. Tedesco’s recalled a visit to an aquarium in San Francisco. “We saw fish and sharks,” she said. “I still remember that trip really well.”

A colleague at Edison said that Ms. Tedesco “does a really good job providing clear instruction. We have monthly assessments of classrooms at our school and Ms. Tedesco’s class routinely outperforms many of the other classes.”

“She’s nice, her classroom was big and comfortable and it was always warm,” a student said.

We are very fortunate to have a teacher like this in our San Francisco community. Congratulations again to Jessica Tedesco, truly deserving of this $1,500 award!