Charles Sagory Reynes
Elementary Science Awardee
"My greatest asset as a teacher is my ability to connect the abstract to the real. By carefully crafting rich, hands-on experiences, I provide multiple opportunities for children to move past intuition toward a deeper understanding of fundamental science concepts. Every teacher must use a variety of teaching approaches to effectively communicate and deliver content to a diverse population. I carefully craft my ‘BIG Activities’ to automatically differentiate instruction by appealing to multiple learning modalities. I want students to remember what they did in science. I want them to talk about it when they get home. My ‘BIG Activities’ involve and engage students in their own learning. They also provide milestones that mark their path toward scientific literacy." — Charles Reynes
Charles Reynes (pronounced ‘Ray-ness’) is an itinerant elementary science specialist teacher who leads 50-minute lessons to fourth and fifth grade students at five different elementary schools in the Castro Valley Unified School District in Alameda County, where he has taught since 1999.
Trained in Business Administration at the University of San Francisco, Reynes originally worked in private industry as an accountant. However, in 1985 he changed careers and completed a Multiple Subject Credential at the California State University, East Bay. After first teaching in schools in the Oakland Archdiocese, he joined the New Haven Unified School District where he taught upper elementary students from 1987 to 1999.
Reynes has deepened his content knowledge by additional summer coursework and participating in the East Bay Science Project. Reynes developed his district’s elementary science curriculum.
In 2006, Reynes was named the Alameda County Teacher of the Year. In 2007, Reynes was named as one of five California Teachers of the Year.
