Daily Herald - October 19th, 2007

Erin Sanders, right, who plays Quinn
on Nickelodeon's "Zoey 101,"
congratulates Wegner School
kindergarten teacher Laura Mendoza.


                                                                                    Actress Erin Sanders signed autographs for
                                                                                    students in Laura Mendoza's kindergarten
                                                                                    class, including Vanessa Vargas, left.
Nickelodeon star helps give prizes to
W. Chicago kids
By Rupa Shenoy | Daily Herald Staff
Published: 10/19/2007                                            

Thirteen years from now, Laura Mendoza's bilingual kindergarten classes will be able to say that their path to college began Thursday.

On the day they graduate from high school in 2020, the 38 students may remember how camera crews, parents and younger siblings crowded Mendoza's classroom.

They might recall how they looked at each other in confusion as Nickelodeon star Erin Sanders announced that their teacher had won a $1,000 college bond for each of them.

And each student definitely will remember their joy at receiving a new orange and yellow personal computer and matching backpack.

"We think this is the beginning of the school and community working together with parents," Principal James Grothendick told the families gathered at Wegner School in West Chicago. "Please join us in helping the Class of 2020."

Mendoza took time out of her vacation this summer to submit an essay to VTech. The Arlington Heights-based company was holding a national contest to give three classrooms its new "Whiz Kid" PC Learning System. The product, which can be plugged into a regular PC, uses games to make learning fun for kids.

To Mendoza's surprise, she won, along with teachers in Phoenix and Fort Worth.

Samara Tuchband, VTech's marketing director, said Mendoza was chosen for the way in which she wanted to use the computers as a tool to involve parents -- and to impress upon families the benefits of education.

"My children can't succeed without their parents," Mendoza said. "I'm going to have them one year. Their parents are with them forever."

The message seemed to be getting across.

"This is a good opportunity for the children, and a good opportunity for us," Edilsia Romero, mother of kindergartner Jose Angel Romero, said in Spanish.

Sanders, who stars as the studious Quinn in Nickelodeon's "Zoey 101," came to present the prizes, which included state-of-the-art computers, scanners and printers.

"I'm very happy," said a shy Ruby Romero in Spanish, at the prompting of her mother, Beatriz Romero. The child clutched a new Polaroid of herself and Sanders. "I'm going to study, practice and be a better student."