Denver Schools Take Lead In Hiring DREAMer Teachers
Like many sojourners to this country, Alejandro Fuentes Mena lives with uncertainty as U.S. immigration policy is debated in the courts, Congress and the White House. But as he awaits a final ruling on his own future, he’s helping other young people build their dreams.
Fuentes, who settled in the United States illegally as a child, is a Denver elementary school teacher under a pilot program that recruits young immigrants like him to teach disadvantaged students. Teach for America, a national nonprofit running the program, believes people like Fuentes can be role models for students ...
Recipients of deferred action, like Fuentes, are also known as DREAMers ...
In the meantime, the Teach for America program he’s involved in has grown from two teachers in Denver, where it was launched last year, to 40 teachers in classrooms across the country ...
Critics question whether Teach for America’s five-week training course leaves candidates unprepared for the classroom and discouraged from making teaching a career ...
Denver’s initiative has inspired other districts to look at DREAMers.
In Colorado’s Eagle County, home to Vail, Superintendent Jason Glass is considering hiring teachers with DACA status ...
Fuentes was a toddler in Valparaiso, Chile, when his mother set off for the United States. He was 4 when he joined her in San Diego ...
CAIRCO Comment: Student role model? By a person who continued to break U.S. law after becoming an adult?
- A role model is someone others look to as a good example
- A role model is someone who is worthy of imitation