Olimpia Bahena
Principal
Olimpia Bahena has served as principal at Talcott Fine Arts and Museum Academy, one of the few Chicago Public Schools with a Dual Language Program, for eleven years. Before moving to the United States 28 years ago, Bahena taught French in Mexico. Her first position in the United State was as a bilingual educator in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. She is one of the first Latino educators in Chicago to be Nationally Board Certified. She served as a mentor and instructor for teachers with provisional teaching certifications in Project 29 at the University of Illinois at Chicago and has taught bilingual courses at the Illinois Resources Center and at DePaul University. Bahena has also presented nationally and at international conferences on topics such as dual-language education and professional learning communities.
All Articles
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Educator health and wellbeing: Put on your own oxygen mask first
May 2 - May 6 is Teacher Appreciation Week and what better way to appreciate yourselves and your colleagues than taking an hour to focus on tips and strategies to promote educator health and wellbeing? These past couple of years have been incredibly stressful and we want to support all […] -
Motivation in motion
This article describes an approach to learning walks that focuses on enhancing student intrinsic motivation and learning at a dual-language pre-K-8 urban public school. The descriptions and ideas in this case study are a composite based on the real-life experiences of the authors as well as ideas from literature and […]
