CLTA Remembers
The Sidney Gorman Endowment for Teacher Training

(edited)
By Lorraine D’Ambruoso

CLTA and the California foreign language community lost one of its consummate professionals, Sidney Gorman. She was a teacher of French, German and American Sign Language at Hopkin’s Junior High School in the Fremont Unified School District, but her fame far exceeded the bounds of her district.

Sidney was dedicated to the teaching profession, especially to the development of new teachers and the professional growth of her colleagues. She was a frequent presenter at ACTFL, FLANC and CLTA Conferences, as well as a member of CFLP’s East Bay Foreign Language Project, presenting at summer seminars and in their training programs. It seems only yesterday that I became a presenter under the formidable tutelage of Gorman, Sparks, Wingard, Silva and Scherf-so Sidney holds a special place in my heart.

To those of you who knew Sidney, it was no surprise when she co-authored the Spanish textbook ¡Dime! Sidney’s passion for languages enabled her to contribute to language development, regardless of the language. As we all know, the success of this series was phenomenal, especially with Sidney providing the teacher training for the ¡Dime! Program.

Sidney loved working with new teachers. Thus, it is most fitting that her legacy includes a gift for them. Her family, in conjunction with CLTA, established a scholarship in her honor. It is a way of encouraging new teachers to participate in professional growth opportunities by providing the funding to make this possible. This endowment fund is available to assist new teachers to participate in CLTA and CFLP activities such as the conference, the summer seminar and the CFLP sites’ seminar series.

CLTA encourages everyone to contribute to Sidney Gorman Endowment Fund to continue helping new teachers afford professional development opportunities.