Los Banos Alumnae Gifting Their Passion, Skill to the Community

“I love working in the community where I live, and at a place that had such a huge impact on who I am now. I hope to fulfill my students as I was once fulfilled by my instructors. I’m living a dream.”

By Luciana Chavez Special to Merced College

For Women’s History Month this year, we champion three women who are excelling in education, mentorship and leadership in the Los Banos area.

Educators and Merced College alumnae Amber Sylva-Bailey, Angelina Torres and Michelle Ceja are improving student prospects throughout Los Banos, where they work and were educated.

Sylva-Bailey, a second-year English professor at the Merced College Los Banos Campus, planned for a teaching career starting in kindergarten. While studying at Merced College in 2008, she found her specific path in Angela Senigaglia’s English course.

“I wanted to do what she was doing,” Sylva-Bailey said. “She was young and very smart and so caring. There was no student-teacher hierarchy in her class. She helped me decide which level and subject I wanted to teach. I immersed myself in English, and every Merced College English professor I had from then on fostered my love of learning and leading a classroom.”

After a hiatus to focus on her children, Sylva-Bailey returned to Merced College in 2014, completing her studies in 2016. At San Jose State, she earned a BA with Latin honors in 2018, and then an MA, as the extraordinary English graduate student of the year, in 2021.

“It was a huge accomplishment, because I had little to no support from home,” she said. “I was raising kids, commuting, never sleeping. But I kept my dream of teaching at Merced College.”

Sylva-Bailey accepted offers for adjunct positions at both SJSU and UC Santa Cruz in Fall 2021. She found her way back to Merced College, first volunteering as women’s soccer manager when her daughter was thinking about playing there, and then being hired to teach in 2023.

“I felt like I had already embedded myself here,” Sylva-Bailey said. “The students are brilliant. My colleagues are fantastic. I love working in the community where I live, and at a place that had such a huge impact on who I am now. I hope to fulfill my students as I was once fulfilled by my instructors. I’m living a dream.”

Angelina Torres works the other end of education as a preschool teacher at Mercey Springs Elementary in the Los Banos Unified School District (LBUSD). For 18 years, she has guided students with autism and other special needs.

“We work with the students on everything, including any kind of behavior challenges, to help them transition well to TK (transitional kindergarten) or kindergarten,” she said.

Torres’s first job out of high school in 2007 was as a preschool classroom assistant. She immediately realized she loves working with young children, and she fell hard for both the students and the career.

“Yes, the career called me,” Torres said. “By luck, the lead teacher back then was Jennifer Rocha, who is also an Early Childhood Education (ECE) professor at Merced College. She molded me, pushed me to go back to school, and taught me everything I know.”

Torres has seen changes, like more men entering ECE, over her two decades in the field.

“Yes, it’s good to give children another positive male role model,” she said. “But, now that I’m older and a mom, I know why women go into ECE. They have a natural sense of how to connect with children and help them feel safe. That’s important when we are the first ones to greet them at school when they first leave the safety of home.”

Torres, who started in general education classrooms, loves the immediacy of working with students with special needs and seeing regular growth.

“Every day they meet goals,” she said. “It’s fulfilling. I enjoy teaching. I want everyone to read and read and read. I love teaching English to Spanish speakers. I think I do well at implementing conscious discipline strategies and teaching students how to self-regulate. I love doing affirmations with them every morning. I love all of it. This is my passion.”

Six months ago, Michelle Ceja accepted the role of Administrative Assistant to program supervisor Zachary Cruz with LBUSD’s Learning Educational Activities Program (LEAP).

Ceja is the person Los Banos schoolchildren rely on to make sure they’re nurtured, fed breakfast and snacks, and receive enrichment activities and tutoring before and after school. The LEAP program is succeeding and growing fast in the district.

“We’ve been expanding LEAP by adding tutoring and contracting with certificated teachers to support that effort,” Ceja said. “We’re trying to make the program as seamless as possible, like an extension of the school day.”

Ceja has experience in so many areas of the LBUSD. She started as a substitute paraprofessional, before being hired full time. Then she worked as a bilingual clerical aide. She took a position as an office assistant while earning her BA at Stanislaus State, and was promoted to office specialist after her graduation. That led to a job at Stan State helping Merced College students transfer to the university before she returned to LBUSD.

Ceja isn’t done. Her goal is to become an elementary school administrator. She’s well on her way, stockpiling experience and knowledge of how schools operate.

“I have a 1-year-old, so this job works for me now,” Ceja said. “My next step is to become a teacher, then an assistant principal, and on from there. I just submitted my application to the credential program at Stanislaus for the fall.”

Ceja glories in the chance to inspire budding educators like herself at LEAP.

“I tell them that, in afterschool programs, they’re already running their own classes—of course they can become teachers,” Ceja said. “It feels so nice to be the person who opens that door. That’s what everyone at Merced College did for me.”

Even after earning a BA at Fresno Pacific University in 2018, Torres has returned to Merced College three times to earn additional certifications.

“I wanted more,” Torres said. “And the help around campus—counselors, financial aid, librarians—I used all of those resources and still remember those people. They made my life so much easier.”

Sylva-Bailey said each of her professors keyed her journey back to Los Banos.

“I never thought I’d accomplish reaching my profession, because I started life with such difficult socioeconomic challenges,” Sylva-Bailey said. “I never would have except for the professors who taught me. They saw in me what I could not, so I owe them a lot.”