What I value most of my job is interacting with students on a day to day basis to impact our nation’s very much underserved and poorly served culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) population. I was drawn to educational leadership to serve at risk kids. This includes children of color, children in poverty, and children with drug/alcohol/behavioral/mental problems. To help you understand this passion I want to share who I am. I am a person who by all accounts should have failed. I should not be a school leader, let alone a PhD.

I grew up as an at risk child: I did not speak English; I grew up working class; we lived in the barrio; I was surrounded by gang activity and teenage pregnancy; there was alcoholism in my family; my parents are not educated people; I am a minority and I am a girl. However, I made it because there were people who believed in me. I was mentored and I was encouraged. There were individuals who cared enough to help me through. I believe in paying it forward.

I’ve always worked with at risk children and their families. As I begun my career teaching in converted army barracks to children in rural New Mexico who lived in shanty towns, I saw my experiences being played out again. And I would see it over and over again in my career. I came to Oregon to work specifically with migrants and immigrants. I did my doctoral research with focus groups using children who had been marginalized out of Portalnd Public Schools. I heard the same story that I lived, that I’ve interacted with, and that I continue to see. Students of color are having these experiences right now.

It is my philosophy that all of us are currently and will be impacted by our nation’s success or failure in meeting the educational needs of all our students including our CLD students. Several respected investigations have listed the many challenges encountered by our CLD students while they attempt to get a high school education including high percentages of families living at the poverty level, mismatch between home culture and school culture, limited resources, inappropriate academic programming. Many of our CLD students are undergoing both the second language acquisition process and the acculturation process at the same time they are trying to succeed academically.

Our CLD students have not fared well in our education system.