Our Library Teacher is:

Timothy Hernandez thernandez7@cherrycreekschools.org

I began my career as an educator at Holy Name Child Care in Topeka, Kansas in August 1988 as the lead teacher for the after school program. My positive experience there led me to change my planned major from business/accounting to elementary education. After three semesters at Washburn University, I transferred to the University of Kansas (Rock-Chalk-Jayhawk!) where I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in elementary education. Returning to Colorado in 1992, I began a now twenty-nine-plus-year odyssey as an educator, working first as a childcare provider for various organizations throughout the Denver Metro Area and more recently as an elementary school librarian for numerous school districts across the Front Range Urban Corridor.

I'm thrilled to rejoin the Sunrise Elementary School team for the 2022 - 2023 term and I look forward to contributing to the Sunrise learning community as much as possible. My life's mission is to help children everywhere develop a love for books and a passion for reading. I love reading aloud and I put great emphasis on sharing terrific tales that encourage young people to think outside themselves and be more curious about the world around them. In my spare time I enjoy reading (of course!), cycling, running, swimming and hiking.

I give my time as often as possible to organizations and causes I support, including Community Resources, Inc., which provides gift books to students at family reading nights across the Denver Metro Area during the school year; the Denver Public Library, reading to private Head Start programs and Denver Public Schools' ECE classes; and the Child Rescue Foundation, Inc., which supports children and families touched by domestic violence.

I'm a proud member of the American Library Association, advocating against the censorship of books and reading materials for children, especially.

The vision for the Sunrise Elementary School Library is to allow free and fair access to academic and cultural information so that all children can reach their intellectual and emotional potential. All who enter our little library seek to become lifelong readers, critical consumers of electronic and print communication, responsible and creative users of technology and informed and ethical reviewers of data for the purpose of gaining knowledge in a twenty-first century world while demonstrating the highest level of integrity and modeling the tenets of the Sunrise Elementary School promise.

Sunrise Elementary Library Site