GOING ABOVE AND BEYOND THE CLASSROOM
EXTRA CREDIT: For these Houston-area educators, innovation and compassion are the main lessons during school closures
As if there was any doubt before, parents and relatives now know for certain: running a school isn’t easy.
It’s a challenging, exhausting labor of love for thousands of Houston-area educators and support staff — many of whom are working like never before amid the novel coronavirus pandemic to support the region’s million-plus children.
We asked readers and districts to tell us about educators and school support staffers who have gone above and beyond, prompting dozens of responses describing innovative and tireless advocates for children.
While no amount of work can replicate the indelible experience of a humming school building, these school employees are making the best of it, hoping their efforts will carry their kids through the shutdown and beyond:
Lori Douglass, fifth-grade teacher, Northgate Crossing Elementary School in Spring ISD
When Spring ISD first announced in mid-March that in-person classes were canceled, Lori Douglass volunteered to clean, pass out food, answer phones — “anything at all.”
For the past eight weeks, Douglass has lived up to her word.
The 23-year teaching veteran volunteers to distribute Chromebooks whenever needed, shrugging off a broken elbow in mid-April. She routinely drops off lunch and groceries at the home of Margaret Morris, a 70-year-old teacher afflicted with shingles just before the pandemic hit.
Perhaps most importantly, she has traveled to all 21 of her students’ homes, leaving
books, coursework packets, headphones and her cellphone number for all-day access at their front doors, offering a wave through the window to her kids. She hosts regular online hangouts with her students, some of whom have taken on added responsibilities for watching younger siblings.
“They’re having a hard time being home,” Douglass said. “I think the key to teaching is relationships, and that’s what I think we’re missing. I just want them to know somebody cares about them and loves them and will follow up on them — not just through this coronavirus, but all the time.”
Kacey Hill, technology technician, Texas City High School in Texas City ISD
In the 12 years she worked the floor of Texas City’s Lowe’s Home Improvement, Kacey Hill submitted so many applications for a tech job to her hometown school district she lost count.
Finally, her breakthrough came in June 2019, when she landed a gig in Texas City ISD. She ultimately settled into a position in January running an initiative to provide laptops to Texas City High’s 1,800 students.
When the pandemic hit, Hill became an indispensable part of the campus. She arrived at homes as Principal Lincoln Hypolite delivered laptops, ensuring computers worked properly. Her phone number pinged around the district, prompting at least 20 calls per day. One parent lauded her as “better than Comcast,” Hypolite said.
Hill sees the job as “my way of giving back” — an opportunity more than a decade in the making.
“These teachers work so hard for their students,” Hill said. “So, I feel like if I can work with the computer part to make it less stressful, I’m doing my part to make their job easier.”
Mellissa Sanchez, librarian, Meadows Elementary School in Fort Bend ISD
They say the news never sleeps — even for the kids running the KKME news station out of Meadows Elementary.
Prior to the shutdown, six Meadows students worked with Mellissa Sanchez to produce the morning announcements: the Pledge of Allegiance, a weather report, a rundown of birthdays. Now, Sanchez tapes her students delivering their reports via video conference, stitching the clips together for a weekly message sent to the school.
“It’s just to bring some normalcy and routine, but also so that kids can see something familiar and connect with their fellow students again,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez serves as a jack-of-alltrades at Meadows — technology champion, sponsor of multiple student clubs, host of the “Genius Hour” passion project period.
The 13-year veteran of Fort Bend has carried that approach into the shutdown, Principal Courtney Dickey said, helping train teachers on online tools, connecting with students to continue their projects and arranging virtual field trips to places like the San Diego Zoo.
“She’s just the epitome of grit and grace, all wrapped into one body,” Dickey said.
Ilka Rosado, student assistance services team manager, Houston ISD
Crystal McConnell and her two children spent the better part of a decade bouncing between shelters and living out of cars. Then she found Ilka Rosado. In January, McConnell met with Rosado at Houston ISD’s office dedicated to supporting homeless students. Rosado offered a calm, encouraging voice, guiding her through the process of obtaining identification, finding temporary shelter and connecting with Goodwill Industries for job training classes.
When the coronavirus arrived in Houston, Rosado’s job responsibilities expanded as threequarters of the Student Assistance Services team stayed home due to their employment status.
Rosado, however, remained in close contact with McConnell, negotiating a yearlong lease for her at a south Houston apartment complex and delivering much-needed toiletries and home goods in-person.
“I didn’t know what was going to be next for me,” McConnell said. “But now, I know I’m going to be OK because I’ve got a safety net and somebody that’s not just here for a moment.”
Nernwon Kargou, alumni adviser, YES Prep Public Schools
When colleges across the country announced campus closures, Nernwon Kargou, an alumna of Aldine ISD’s Eisenhower High School and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., imagined how she would have handled the upheaval.
“The idea of having to drop everything and get back to Houston would have been impossible,” said Kargou, the daughter of West African immigrants who scraped together money for her education.
Kargou is responsible for assisting about 200 YES Prep graduates in their first year out of high school, a relatively unique job within public schools. She also stays in touch with hundreds of YES Prep alumni navigating college.
As college campuses shut down, Kargou made contact with YES Prep alumni from Maine to California. She helped arrange air travel, funded in part by the organization, for those returning to Houston, then delivered laptops and wireless internet hotspots for those without access at home. When students decided to stay on-campus, she arranged to send $150 virtual gift cards for groceries.
“That’s what drives me in this work: I see what a strong network can do for kids,” Kargou said.
Bryan Chaffin, eighth-grade U.S. history teacher, McAdams Junior High School in Dickinson ISD
By his own admission, Bryan Chaffin is a ham.
To teach lessons about George Whitfield, Chaffin dresses up as the wigged 18th-century preacher. For lectures on the Founding Fathers, he transforms his classroom into a Constitutional Convention hall, with candlelight and old green tablecloths.
Naturally, when the McAdams Junior High campus closed down, Chaffin immediately got comfortable in front of the camera and began videotaping lessons from his dining room table.
Chaffin now overlays his lectures with animated slideshows, mapping out the Battle of Antietam and depicting key players involved in the Civil War. The 10-minute videos take about four to six hours to produce — on top of his daily calls to students, review of paper packets and weekly video conferences with classes.
“It’s just like he moved a classroom, but made it so it’s not like online learning,” Principal Rachelle Joseph said. “The kids are not just listening. They’re engaged in the lesson.”
Kellie Gallegos, social worker, KIPP Nexus Primary in KIPP Texas Public Schools
In the early 2000s, Kellie Gallegos homeschooled her pre-kindergartner and kindergartner for six months — and it did not go well.
“I remember feeling so inadequate, knowing that I wanted my children to have a great education, thinking I could provide it, but not knowing what in the world I was doing,” Gallegos said.
Those memories inspired Gallegos to create two parent support groups at KIPP Nexus Primary, home to 375 kids on Houston’s northwest side.
The two groups now gather twice a week with Gallegos and a Spanish-speaking staffer on Zoom. On a recent Thursday, about 15 moms swapped tips on setting schedules, received a suggestion from Gallegos to create “house rules” and offered encouragement to each other.
“The academics for their children really are important to them, but they’re managing so many things,” Gallegos said. “For us, we just want to tell them that it’s OK. It’s not just your child, but all of America. And we hear you. We see you.”
Gladys Navarro, nutrition services general manager, Cypress Lakes High School in Cy-Fair ISD
Cy-Fair ISD officials are allowing food service employees to work from home on occasion — but Gladys Navarro clocks in at 7 a.m. Monday through Friday, only leaving in the mid-afternoon once hundreds of children have received curbside meals.
“I think if I miss one day or two days, I’m going to miss seeing people, making their day,” Navarro said.
Navarro, a mother of three with no prior food service experience, went to work in Cy-Fair 13 years ago after spotting a job ad on a flyer brought home by her youngest child.
She quickly rose through the ranks, and now leads two new pilot programs in Cy-Fair providing a “second chance breakfast” after first period and an evening hot dinner for kids staying after school. Amid the pandemic, her team packages and delivers 700 to 1,000 meals per day.
“When this happened, she was among the first people to stay up and say, ‘Let’s get some feeding going,’” Cy-Fair Director of Food Service Darin Crawford said.
Glenda Frutiz, second-grade student-teacher, Westwood Elementary School in Spring Branch ISD
It’s safe to say Glenda Frutiz, a University of Houston senior, has been sufficiently tested in her nine months as a student-teacher.
In September, her first oncampus observation by a professor fell on the day Tropical Storm Imelda hit. Four months later, an explosion in northwest Houston shattered windows in the home of Frutiz’s mentor teacher, thrusting her to the front of the class.
Now, the Stratford High School alumna sits down on a large plastic bin in her childhood Spring Branch bedroom, taping herself reading to kids, fuzzy stuffed animals perched behind her. She prepares social studies lessons and delivers instruction via Zoom from the family dining room table. For students with March and April birthdays, she sends digital cards.
“We’ve been working day and night to try and make it work for at least most of the students,” Frutiz said. “It’s been hard to get in contact with some of the students, especially with the situations they live in.”
Frutiz plans to continue working with Westwood students after her May 1 student-teaching term ends. She will be back in Spring Branch ISD in August — this time as a full-time employee.
Monserrat Ramirez-Canales, cosmetology teacher, Kirk Lewis Career and Technical High School in Pasadena ISD
A week before Pasadena’s schools closed, Monserrat Ramirez-Canales braced her students for the possible financial impact of the novel coronavirus on the cosmetology industry — a vital lesson given how many of them have mothers, sisters and aunts working in salons.
With the district shutdown now in full swing, Ramirez-Canales’ attention has turned to keeping students on a path toward graduation and certification. When Pasadena opened its campus to teachers for 30 minutes, she raced into the building to grab mannequins, sponges and skin products for instructional videos she now tapes at home.
“It would just be really nice to get those students licensed so they do have the opportunity to obtain those jobs, so they can continue to help their parents at home,” she said.
As a 2003 graduate of Pasadena High School who spent her entire childhood in the district, Ramirez-Canales relates to her students. That familiarity helped the 10-year teaching veteran build strong relationships with kids and parents, which she relies on to connect them with food, health and jobs resources.
“When we reach out, asking, ‘Has anyone heard from these students?’ Monse is quick to know each of those individuals, the struggling students’ situations,” Kirk Lewis Assistant Principal Tom Le said. “She maintains that bond they have, so they continue to work for her and with her.”