Maria Angala

Maria Angala, NBCT is a Filipina teacher in Washington DC who spent 22 years figuring out why our bilingual and special needs kids were falling through the cracks. She built a framework to fix it, now she’s bringing it to the Philippines and SE Asia. She is a National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT) recognized as an Exceptional Needs Specialist.

Prior to teaching in Washington DC, Maria was a SPED teacher at a Developmental Intervention School in Manila and successfully ran her own school for children with special needs in Quezon City, Philippines for six years. Once in Washington DC, She helped students who are struggling readers and writers who are diagnosed with special needs maximize their learning potential. Most of them are in the below basic reading level and are struggling in phonetics, phonemic awareness, reading comprehension, and vocabulary skills. She currently teach in a school that serves 100% neurodivergent and exceptional students, 12% of them are Multilanguage Learners.

Maria makes her classroom a great place for learning by having a research based instructional model incorporating the use of different 21st Century skills targeted by career standards. Her lessons include rigor, AI technology, innovation, productive struggle, collaboration with community partners than ever before. Her goal is to ensure that her students have an explicit and accelerated path to college & career readiness despite their challenges. Every year, students rise to the challenge in her classroom where they are given the right resources, supports, and time to master the skills. She has a consistent track record of student progress where in the past, Maria’s students have demonstrated 4-6 years of reading growth surpassing their yearly reading growth goal of 1.5 years.

Maria is dual certified in Special Education (SPED) & Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and on top of being a classroom teacher, Maria is also a Teacher Leader. She has served as a WTU AFT Local#6 Executive Board Member for 6 years, and in 2019-2020 was with the Chancellor’s Teacher Cabinet. In both capacities, and as a National Board Professional Learning Facilitator, she's been having conversations with policymakers and politicians about the value of National Board Certification (NBC) to students and teachers, advocating for supports for NBC Candidates and elevating the professional voice of teachers. Maria also helps in making sure that classrooms have great teachers as a Teacher Selection Ambassador.