Metropolitan Education District

Press Release

Metropolitan Education District
760 Hillsdale Ave
San Jose, CA 95136
September 2, 2011

Contact: Michelle Alaimo
Communication Specialist
(408) 723-6464
malaimo@metroed.net

Collette Betters Named MetroED Teacher of the Year

Central County Occupational Center (CCOC) Health Occupations Instructor, Collette Betters, has been named the MetroED 2010-11 Teacher of the Year. Betters will be honored at the Santa Clara County Office of Education's 42th Annual Teacher Recognition Day ceremony on September 27, at the Heritage Theatre in Campbell.

Betters always has a cheerful and optimistic attitude with both students and staff, CCOC Director, John Fox said. One of Betters' teaching goals is to create a solid educational foundation for students to build on and encourages lifelong learning. Another part of Betters teaching philosophy is to make everything she teaches relevant to her student's lives and future careers, Betters said.

For example, "If I can help a student realize how understanding cellular respiration will lead to treatments that can help in his grandmother's illness," Betters said, "I'm going to have a student who is starting to lean forward in his seat…and he will be a successful learner."

Betters said it is also important that her students learn to find solutions to problems and be leaders in the community. Last spring, Betters' students held CCOC's first ever blood drive. The response was so tremendous that the bloodmobile came out a second time to finish collecting blood from student donors and staff. Another blood drive is planned for this fall.

Since 2000, Betters has taught Health Occupations at CCOC. Betters said that she always knew that she would eventually go into teaching but first wanted to get some "life experiences" to help her become a better teacher. She has quite an impressive resume and has worked as an Emergency Room Technician, Phlebotomist, Firefighter, and DNA sequencing lab technician. In addition to teaching at CCOC, Betters has taught CPR to local residents for more than 25 years. Betters has a Bachelors Degree in Accounting but after working in the field decided that she would like to study biology. While attending Ohlone College for Biology, Betters was the Biology Student of the year, a teacher's assistant and tutor.

When Betters is not teaching, she enjoys learning more about World War I, enjoys the outdoors, food, Paris, and training her three dogs.

MetroED is the largest career-oriented organization in Santa Clara County comprised of high school and adult career-technical, and academic programs, which include Central County Occupational Center (CCOC) and the Metropolitan Adult Education Program (MAEP).

MetroED annually provides more than 10,000 diverse students with the skills to help them be productive, income earning and tax-paying contributors to Silicon Valley.