Last year, a girl in Melody Gonzalez’s class at Las Palmas Middle School, in the San Gabriel Valley, started sobbing in class one day.
Gonzales asked her what was wrong. The girl said her father had just been deported.
“I felt terrible. There was nothing I could say or do. So I just listened,” said Gonzalez, who’s been teaching seven years. “I just tried to be there for her. I think the listening helped — now she knows she can come to me. … Just building that relationship with kids makes a difference. They’re not just any kids, I see them as my kids, and they know they can trust me.”
Such supportive, personal relationships between teachers and students are one reason why Covina-Valley Unified, where Las Palmas is located, has such a high student success rate, especially for Latino students, teachers and administrators said. Latino students, who make up 75 percent of the district’s 12,000-student enrollment, have a 97 percent graduation rate, among the highest percentages of any ethnic group in any district in the state.
The district begins promoting college as soon as children enroll in kindergarten. Each elementary school classroom “adopts” a college to learn about, which is especially important for children whose parents did not attend college, Sheehan said. Students also start taking computer coding classes in elementary school, preparing them for potential career paths.
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