Kim Ordaz knew how to make learning hands-on.
Even more importantly, some say, she knew how to make each student feel appreciated.
For many of Ordaz’s pupils, the blue-eyed, blond-haired kindergarten teacher who loved gnomes, fairies and nature was one they never forgot.
“More than any other teacher I’ve met – she just had a way of making every kid want to come to school,” said Denise Jungling, whose daughter Willow was one of Ordaz’s students at Luigi Aprea Elementary School. “She found the time to teach these kids art and cooking and drawing and everything kindergarten should be.”
Ordaz was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010. She went through treatment and was in remission for three years, but the cancer metastasized. She passed away in August at the age of 55. She had been an employee of the Gilroy Unified School District for 30 years.
Ordaz’ husband, Chris, remembers the memory albums, or personalized scrapbooks, his wife made for each of her students every year. In the last few weeks of school, the Ordaz’s dining and family rooms were filled with papers and photos, as she put together a personalized book for each student.
“She really built their self esteem,” said Chris, as he reflected on the influence his wife had on her students. “She made them feel special.”
This year, the re-appearance of cancer meant Kim didn’t finish the school year. But her students still got their memory books. Parents stepped in to finish the books and Kim handed them out from a wheelchair. With each book, she had a good thing to say about the student receiving it.
Kim was honored in 2010 as the Santa Clara County “Teacher of the Year.” After her passing, six kindergarten teachers who had worked closely with her at Luigi Aprea decided they needed to do something in her honor. They planned a five-phase Kimberly Ordaz Memorial Playground. The first phase includes digging up a section of blacktop in front of the kindergarten classrooms and planting the largest oak tree they can afford, so the kindergarten students can play in the shade.
In life, Kim had loved an oak tree that shaded the Luigi Aprea kindergarten playground for many years.
“It was the only tree in our playground. It was like a science laboratory for the children,” said Chris Wheeler, who taught kindergarten at Luigi Aprea with Kim for about five years and remembers how the students used to play under the oak and watch the ants and woodpeckers that called the tree home.
Eventually, the tree was deemed diseased, and the school district decided it was a public safety threat. It was cut down one weekend, and the students came back to school to find a playground without the oak tree.
“I had no idea how old it was. It was just always there,” Wheeler said. “It was the focal part of the playground.”
Each day at lunchtime, about 100 kindergarten students share the playground area and only about 20 students at a time can fit on the existing play structure.
It’s hard for most kindergartners to think of ways to entertain themselves on just blacktop on a hot day, explained Linda Wanslow who taught in the same classroom as Kim for about 20 years.
Most remember Kim for the way she made the lessons come alive.
“She always found time to go the extra mile and make things more meaningful to children,” Wanslow said.
Kim also gave her students life lessons disguised in activities. In class, she had students learn a lesson in responsibility when they started pumpkin seeds in cartons. Those that kept their plants alive all summer were invited back the following year to show their pumpkins to Kim’s new kindergarten class. Students that kept their plants alive also had their picture on proud display in Kim’s “Pumpkin Wall of Fame.”
Colleagues and parents say Kim worked to make her classes engaging and interactive for students.
“She made every kid feel special in their own way,” said Willow Jungling, now a fourth-grader who still considers Kim her favorite teacher. “She would always take the time for every kid.”
Willow remembers how Kim always had a “student of the day” who got to sit in a special chair and be the teacher’s helper for the day.
“She would always write a little letter to you when you were student of the day – a letter to you that says what she likes about you,” said Willow, who, five years later, still remembers what Kim wrote in her letter.
The most basic plans for the memorial garden include an oak tree, kindergartner sized benches and possibly a new shade structure. Later phases include a garden plot by the playground fence.
Chris Ordaz has also created a memorial scholarship in his wife’s honor to support a graduate of the Gilroy Unified School District who is pursuing a career in teaching. Ordaz hopes to offer a $1,000 scholarship each year, sourced from his private funds and public donations.
“She always did her share… and thought of the bigger pictures of things, that’s why the playground would be the best thing we could do for her,” said Wanslow. “It’s something doable too. Planting a tree – it’s doable.”
To make a donation to the Kimberly Ordaz Memorial Playground, send a check made payable to the “Gilroy Foundation” at P.O. Box 774 / Gilroy, CA 95021. Specify in the memo section of the check or in a cover letter, that the funds should be directed towards the Kimberly Ordaz Memorial Playground. To contribute to the Kimberly Ordaz memorial scholarship, make checks payable to the Kimberly Ordaz Memorial Scholarship Fund c/o Rabobank, 761 First Street, Gilroy, CA 95020.
