Former students return to teach in San Carlos

The San Carlos Unified School District has focused on hiring and retaining administration, teachers and staff who are alums of the school system, bringing San Carlos people home to teach San Carlos students.

Many of the District’s new, young hires have seen the struggles of Apache students first-hand and are now able to offer empathy and advice to those who may have a hard time juggling the demands of school with their lives outside the classroom.

SCUSD support services created a Cultural Success Coaching program to help students who may need an extra boost. The program offers services ranging from mental health support to basic hygiene products or clothing.

A number of the counselors are SCUSD graduates who grew up on the Reservation and have returned to share their experiences and mentor troubled students.

“Our duty is to take care of the kids and meet the kids’ needs,” says San Carlos High School Cultural Success Coach Bernard Thompson. “We’re here for the kids and partner with our counselors, so they can also get emotional and mental health care too.”

Thompson is a 23-year-old who graduated from SCHS in 2018. He says he was a “naughty kid” and that he was going down a bad path until he met a new group of friends in his sophomore year.

“They became my lifelong friends, and we’re still friends to this day,” Thompson says. “They set me straight and helped me get on the right path. We just helped guide each other through school.”

After graduating, he worked for the San Carlos Wellness Center and spent four years as a behavioral health technician, working with schools in a mentoring program called Young Warriors.

However, when the school district created the Cultural Success Coaching program, he decided that was where he wanted to go.

Thompson is now entering his second year in the program, and uses his experiences to help relate to and mentor students who may not have the opportunities he’s created for himself.

“When I was in high school, I did not see myself doing stuff like this but everything just fell into place and I found my opportunity to make a difference in the community, so I took it,” Thompson says. “We have a few kids that we’ve built a personal connection with and they’ve really turned it around.”

Additionally, working for the school district has motivated him to pursue a college degree at some point in his future.

For Tricia Logan, the job as a Success Coach to Pre-K-2nd at Rice Primary School has been therapeutic and helped her deal with her own issues from her past. She also mentors students as the volleyball coach for the Lady Braves after she played volleyball throughout high school. She has now stepped up to help Athletic Director Donna Antonio.

The 22-year-old SCHS graduate grew up in the District with the exception of her seventh-grade year spent at High Desert Middle School in Globe.

Logan also spent much of her youth in foster care with two siblings, so she brings a special understanding of the needs of students who may have challenges in their personal lives. While her personal life has had its share of tragedy and even abuse, she finds encouragement both in the thought of mentoring but is also surrounded by many of the people who helped her cope.

“It was counselors, mentors and pen pals that impacted my life, and helped me become the person I am,” Logan says. “I came back and started working under the success coach and counselors, so I really enjoy it. I like to think it’s for the kids.”

Logan says she wants to continue her education—she currently has an AA in social work from Eastern Arizona College—and hopes to be accepted at Northern Arizona University to earn her Bachelor’s degree in social work and eventually become a school counselor.

Tenth-grade English teacher Noelia Ferreira comes to SCUSD with an entirely different experience, as her family has close ties to education. She not only spent her entire Pre-K through 12 in the school district, but her grandfather Fred was on the SCUSD governing school board and was also the tribal education director for 13 years, and her aunt teaches school in the Valley.

Ferreira never doubted pursuing higher education, although most of her youth believed she wanted to be a veterinarian.

However, due to sheer happenstance, Ferreira’s goals changed as she pursued her AA at EAC. She needed an elective to earn her degree, and she enrolled in a general education class that drew her into the classroom.

“It was in that class that I figured out I actually love the backgrounds of education,” Ferreira says. “It helped that I had great, great professors. They were super helpful and great people that I wanted to model myself after becoming a teacher.”

She also credits the district’s teachers and administrators, including her English teacher Sarah Curd and incoming Assistant Superintendent Shawn Pietila, with nurturing her love for education.

“It started to feel like an actual option,” Ferreira added. “It just never felt like that was a choice, so I decided to go for it. I signed up for ASU and was paired with amazing counselors who helped me put into work an actual plan that felt even more physical and doable than a veterinarian ever felt. They were extremely supportive in my future.”

Ultimately, though, Ferreira is glad to return to her home in the role of a San Carlos Apache woman teaching Apache students who are at this point in her life the younger siblings of students she attended school with.

“I don’t know if I necessarily get more respect from my students, but I do feel like there’s already a foundation of knowledge in general,” Ferreira says. “The support here from teachers and administration has been insane and so many people have just been so sweet.”