ACSA leaders honored during CAAPLE conference

www.acsa.org

Parvin Ahmadi, Margarita Cuizon-Armelino and Daryl Camp hold awards they received during CAAPLE’s annual conference, held April 19-21 in Newport Beach.

May 27, 2024

Several ACSA leaders were honored at the California Association of Asian & Pacific Leaders in Education annual conference held last month in Newport Beach.

ACSA President Parvin Ahmadi, ACSA Vice President Daryl Camp and ACSA Deputy Executive Director Margarita Cuizon-Armelino each received awards at the event, where attendees explored opportunities for career development and attended sessions centered around the conference theme, “Building and Belonging Leadership: Leveraging Our Cultural Strengths for System Change.”

Ahmadi was honored as CAAPLE’s Superintendent of the Year. Ahmadi’s career spans 34 years as a teacher, principal, director and assistant superintendent. In addition to her current roles as ACSA president and superintendent of Castro Valley USD, she is an instructor for the California School Boards Association’s Masters in Governance. She is also a lecturer at California State University in the Educational Administration division.

CAAPLE selected Ahmadi for this award because she is a fierce advocate and leader for equity and social justice. Her advocacy can be seen in her service to ACSA, as well as her district’s policies that have resulted in the academic growth and well-being of her students. Most importantly, her advocacy is felt by everyone in her presence who trusts and believes she has their very best interest at heart — no matter what. As ACSA president she has made it a priority to ensure that cultural and ethnic representation are at the heart of decisions made by ACSA leadership. In essence, Ahmadi believes all children, educators and community members will have access to educational programs and services allocating resources (fiscal and human) equitably and with the margins at the core of decisions.

Camp received CAAPLE’s Advancing Leadership award. A public-school educator in California for over 30 years, Camp is currently superintendent of San Lorenzo USD. He has served on the Board of Directors for the state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team. He is now a Masters in Governance faculty member and governance consultant for the California School Boards Association. He recently completed a two-year term as president of the California Association of African American Superintendents and Administrators.

Camp was honored for serving as a role model and a mentor for leaders of color wishing to attain career advancement and leadership positions in professional organizations. He believes deeply that by advancing in his career he helps uplift other potential leaders. Camp is unafraid to have difficult conversations about multilingualism, race and equity in his role as a successful and equity-centered superintendent. Evidence of his work can be seen in the systems he has created in his former and current districts.

Cuizon-Armelino received the Friend of CAAPLE award for her many efforts to serve more than 18,000 ACSA members throughout California. Cuizon-Armelino joined ACSA 30 years ago as a part-time clerk in the Educational Services Department. Through the years she has been promoted and today serves as ACSA’s deputy executive director charged with helping move ACSA’s strategic plan initiatives, identifying core organizational challenges and solutions, improving company culture for employees and representing the organization on behalf of the executive director.

CAAPLE is recognizing Cuizon-Armelino for her many contributions during her career at ACSA, including development of ACSA’s Exemplary Woman in Education Award, the Ambassador Program for welcoming and onboarding new members at the regional levels, and ACSA’s Crisis Support Program focused on members and school districts affected by natural disasters. Having served as the staff liaison for the ACSA Equity Committee, she helped launch ACSA’s equity program, and in April 2020, just three weeks after the pandemic caused the state to shut down, she orchestrated ACSA’s very first virtual networking event connecting over 1,000 ACSA members with educators in China who were eight weeks ahead of the U.S. in their pandemic response and had been successfully leading schools virtually. In 2021, she also created a platform for ACSA members to have conversations about the rising number of hate crimes against Asian Americans.

The full list of CAAPLE award recipients is as follows:

Youth Empowerment Award: AAPI Youth Rising. Teacher of the Year: Joann Baguio. Teacher of the Year: Pakaikeo “Kaikeo” Smith. Co-Administrator: Natasha Leacock Harris. Principal of the Year: Angienette Estonina. Principal of the Year: Quyen Corral. Superintendent of the Year: Parvin Ahmadi. District Office Educator of the Year: Rudy “Akoni” Derige. District Office Educator of the Year: Jalyn Barnard. County Office Educator: Gwen Baquiran. Advancing Leadership: Daryl Camp. Professor of Education: Rebecca Cheung. Friend of CAAPLE: Margarita Cuizon-Armelino. Valuing Diversity: Paul Gothold.