Long before SCVi Educator Erika Cedeño came to the United States, she dreamt of revolutionizing education.

Cedeño obtained a degree in education pedagogy in Mexico and applied several times to the
Secretaría de Educación Pública, or federal Department of Education. Her goal? To help
Mexican educational authorities create exams that gave them real information about how
students progressed over the course of a school year.

When Cedeño moved to California, she discovered SCVi, iLEAD’s founding school in Castaic,
and began working as a high school and IB Spanish facilitator in 2015.

“When SCVi gave me the opportunity to work as a teacher, my American dream was fulfilled,”
Cedeño said.

She set to work learning everything she could about American standardized tests – which differ greatly than those in her native Mexico.

In 2016, she began serving as an integral part of the team creating the California Spanish
Assessment exam, or CAASPP en Español. In May 2019, she was selected to write and review
the borderline standards and standards setting for Spanish education statewide.

Of the 90 educators working on the project, she was one of 12 picked to serve as a panelist and was the sole teacher representing SCVi’s district in Sacramento. She is planning to return to Sacramento in October 2019 to work as part of a statewide Department of Education team focusing on range
setting.

“It fills me with satisfaction,” Cedeño said. “It also fills me with pride, because several of the exam
items were created by me. But most of all, it fills me with happiness because I am fulfilling a
dream that I often thought was unachievable.”

Cedeño is a graduate of Universidad Autónoma de México in Mexico City, where she earned a
B.A. in pedagogy. She has a degree in Spanish language and has been in the United States
for more than 13 years.

She is married to the love her life, Eduardo, and has three children. In her free time, Erika enjoys tennis, running ultramarathons and participating in Ironman triathlon competitions.

iLEAD Schools empower learners to become conscientious, compassionate and responsible
citizens of the world, and inspires them to become creative thinkers and leaders with a lifelong
love of learning.

The iLEAD learning model promotes individualized instruction, active learning methods and
opportunities for self-directed learning. The organization celebrates and fosters each child’s
individuality, and supports them in discovering their highest potential in the environment which
best suits their learning needs. For more information, click here.

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