SACRAMENTO – Assemblywoman Fiona Ma (D- San Francisco) presented the Woman of the Year award for the 12th Assembly District to Beverly Kong on Mar. 16. Kong, the current Principal of Lawton Alternative School, has a career in education that spans thirty-six years in teaching and administrative roles in Bay Area Schools.
A trailblazer in the community, Kong’s achievements include: participating in school reform initiatives including the Coalition of Essential Schools-Brown University, Annenberg Institute for School Reform-National Reform Faculty, and Bay Area School Reform Collaborative, serving at the California Academy of Sciences on the Advisory Board of the recently formed “Teacher Institute of Science and Sustainability,” and initiating the California Academic Partnership Program (CAPP). CAPP forged a partnership between the “Step to College Program” at the San Francisco State University and Daly City’s Jefferson Union High.
“Beverly performs one of the most honorable professions in our community,” said Assemblywoman Ma. “Her passion for education and commitment to students and teachers alike serves as an example to all Californians.”
A life-long San Franciscan, Kong is a graduate of the San Francisco Public School System. She graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of California, Berkeley. A teaching credential followed from the University of San Francisco. She also attended San Francisco State University where she earned a Master’s Degree in Education and her administrative credential. In 2001, Kong returned to her home district, San Francisco Unified, to become the Principal of Lawton Alternative.
Kong’s story is the California immigrant story. Her grandfather and mother left an impoverished and war torn China for the city known as “Gold Mountain” or San Francisco. Her mother worked as a seamstress in San Francisco’s Chinatown to support her four children and an aging father-in-law. Kong was the first in her family to obtain a college degree.
Each March, the Assembly commemorates Women’s History Month through a ceremony in which each state legislator chooses an extraordinary woman in his or her district for special recognition. Honorees participate in a ceremony, hosted by the Legislative Women’s Caucus, on the Assembly Floor and spend the day with legislators.
Folks:
Kudos to Beverlyi Kong.
And to all the others, who, like her, work a lifetime of commitment to what she believes in and KNOQS is valuable and honorable.
Meanwhile, as the movers and shakers parse and ponder the “global” significations and infe4ences of the ongoing brouhaha over the Chas Freeman-vs-AIPAC fisticuffs, it is accomplishments like Kong’s that matter in ways the former cannot begin to understand.
Not that Freeman isn’t correct and that AIPAC is humongously in error, despite the change of “Action” to “Affairs” in their title.
Read today’s London Guardian Freed;lan d piece on same. Reasonable, for sure, but even as he poohpoohs the “wag the dog” powers of AIPAC, he simultaneously acknowledges its demonstrated clout.
I, for one, hope 80/20 NEVER achieves AIPAC’s dubious estate, that of a rabble-rousing, ranting coterie of misguided ideologues AND profiteers.
Meanwhile, of course, Palenstinians suffer, along with all the other innocents caujgjht in the crosshairs of a hegemon Hell-bent on maintaining an ill-conceived and grievously underqualified would-be hegemony.
Whitman’s vaunted “America” today is of dubyous merit or “value,” as in the rapidly depreciating “dollar.”
So, folks, “spend” ‘em before theyi devalue further.
P.S/: : Lian Aiu and staff, overworked or not, you still must keep up with the daily deadlines.
Mrs. Kong is the absolute best! She helped me in so many ways. She believed in me when I thought no one else (including myself) did. She is everything that we all aspire to be. i am so blessed to have you in my life. Thank you!