About Spanish4Educators

Spanish 4 Educators essentially dates back to 1997 – this was the first time that program coordinator Steve Foster visited Guatemala. He has been back more than fifteen times since then – first as a chaperone for a group of high school students on a service trip, and now as a trip coordinator and program leader for Spanish4Educators.

In early 2012, as a teacher in Denver’s most highly-concentrated Spanish-speaking neighborhood, Steve decided to create an immersion program specifically for educators. The summer of 2013 was the first year that the experience was offered, and Summer 2014 was our first year to offer the program to a large group.

We are proud to say that more than 100 educators as part of seven separate groups have taken part in our program, and we are extremely proud about the multi-cultural educators that our alumni have become!

We hope to continue to evolve this program into a sustainable and valuable experience for educators to gain cultural and linguistic fluency!

Steve Foster, Tiffany Higgins, and Blanca Solares

(from July 2016)

We have been collaborating with El Hato for the past five years, and are grateful for being a part of such a special school community.

(from July 2018)

WHO WE ARE - STAFF

Steve Foster: Program Coordinator

Steve Foster, Program Director for Spanish 4 Educators, lives in Durango, Colorado. Currently, he is a social studies teacher at Durango High School. Previously, he worked in the curriculum and assessment department in Durango, and also taught secondary social studies and English Language Acquisition in three different public school districts in the Denver Metro area. He has been a public school educator for the past fifteen years.

Steve has a passion for intercultural communication and understanding. He brings this passion into his classroom as a teacher every day. It only seemed natural for Steve, especially realizing the importance of communication with Spanish-speaking students and their families, that he create an immersion experience catered specifically to educators.

In 2013, Steve created Spanish 4 Educators, and began to offer immersion programs in Guatemala specifically for educators.

Blanca Gonzalez: Guatemala site leaders

Blanca has many years of experience as a Spanish teacher, teacher leader, and logistics coordinator for Spanish schools and non-profit organizations in and around Antigua, Guatemala. She has been an integral part of the Spanish4Educators team since late 2015, and brings a local’s knowledge, calm demeanor, and years of experience with Spanish language immersion tours.

We are lucky to have Blanca as one of the main leaders with Spanish4Educators! She looks forward to meeting you in Guatemala this summer as the Guatemala Site Coordinator. Not only that, but her daughter Sory is our official interpreter, and helps ensure that our elementary Spanish speakers still get a lot out of our cultural activities. A HUGE THANK YOU to both Blanca and Sory for all you do to make our experience special!

Sory Gonzalez: Guatemala site leaders

Sory Gonzales: Sory has been with Spanish4Educators for the past five years as the official “Interpreter.” Whether helping out in providing interpretation services for our cultural activities, or providing general support for our cohorts, or helping out Blanca and Steve with day-to-day tasks, Sory is an invaluable member of our team. Thanks for all of your help Sory!

Tiffany Higgins – Group Facilitator

Tiffany Higgins, M.S., is a masterful and creative experiential facilitator with more than 20 years’ experience providing positive personal and professional development experiences to clients in community, business, university, therapeutic, and youth- and school-based programs.

She is known for facilitating individuals and groups to a deeper examination through skillful inquiry, a vast array of experiential tools, and heightened awareness of group and individual dynamics. Tiffany is skillful at building bridges between individual cultures as well as global cultures.