3 tips for Latinos: don’t be afraid to ask for help; learn more about the courses your child is taking, and attend PTA nights…
Somerville High School is located on top of a hill. From Paula Monahan’s office the view over Cambridge and Boston is magnificent (“a million-dollar view without the million dollars account”). Paula has been guidance counselor in Somerville for the last 14 years; her room is filled with pictures, photos, and mementos from her students. She got into guidance as a result of an early challenge: one of her teachers in high school told her once that she was not smart enough to go to college. Without being totally aware, she was pushed to go into clerical work. Once working in an office she felt miserable. So much so that she decided to take night courses in order to enter college. She then went to U.Mass-Lowell when it still was the University of Lowell, where she majored in Spanish. At the time she even went to Valencia, Spain for a summer. Her accent in Spanish still has the Spain touch.
After working in several dropout prevention programs Paula decided to follow a masters that would allow her to make a difference. At that point in her career she decided to study counseling and guidance. In her new professional world no kid was going to be told she/he was not smart enough to go to college. After working in Lawrence and Chelsea, where her knowledge of Spanish was an asset, she entered Somerville High.
Apart from obvious individual differences, what are the main issues affecting Hispanic students to go up the academic ladder?
First, they don’t have much home support. Many of our Latino families come from these little tiny villages in El Salvador and they don’t have the background in education; their parents don’t speak the language, so they don’t have the family support. Even though the families want them to get an education, they don’t know how because they don’t understand the system and sometimes don’t speak English. They are even intimidated to come into the high school. In other cases going up the ladder is not part of the family plans. Some families don’t want to let go of their grown up kids, especially boys. Second, they don’t understand the system, which makes them feel overwhelmed by schools, especially if it’s big schools. Just to give you an example, in Somerville High the case load of 9th graders for the 2008 group was 500. In this group 45% were whites and 26% Hispanics. Thirdly, a lot of them work 30 to 35 hours a week to help the family’s income. These kids are my heroes because they manage to go to school with that huge load in their lives. It’s very important for the parents to understand that there are many diverse people at the high school that speak different languages and that there’s help available to them. But the most important thing kids can do for themselves is to seek out for help. They need to talk with teachers, they need to talk to their guidance counselors, they need to go and be pro active. They can’t just sit and wait for someone to ask them, “Oh, so what can I do for you? What can I do?” Sometimes it happens, but a lot of times it doesn’t; the student needs to take the initiative to go and speak with the teacher about things like, am I taking the right courses, you know? Which courses do I need to put me on the right track to get into college?
One thing is meeting the graduation from high school requirements, which is great, but I if you want to go into college, you need specific courses. And the kids don’t know that you need to start from the 9th grade on. You can’t start in the 11th grade or going into their senior year. They need to start right from the 9th grade. The very first thing kids should do when they come to the 9th grade is make an appointment with their guidance counselor and ask: what courses am I going to take all four years to get me into a four year college?
One very specific question, Paula, in the case of the APS is it better to have AP, level 1 courses and obtain Bs and B-s, or take only level 2 classes?
It all depends; especially with 9th graders because so much is new and they are trying to adjust to the high school. No one expects a kid to have their life planned out ahead of them at the age of 16 or 17 years old. I always tell my students “I’m pushing 59 and I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up” so you don’t have to know what you want to be. But if a student has in their mind that they want to go to a university like Tufts or like Boston College or Harvard, one of those big name schools that everybody hears about, then they ought to understand that the level of courses they take is extremely important. Many times students don’t notice; they don’t have a concept. But, again, there is no way they could notice, because this is part of what the learning process in high school is about. You know, a 9th grader will come in and tell me: “Oh, I want to go to Harvard” but will get all Ds and Fs. You can’t go to Harvard with Ds and Fs. But there are a lot of wonderful colleges out there that don’t require you to take an AP class maybe just a college level course or so. However, it’s always good to challenge yourself. Colleges look at the courses that you take, and it’s better to get As and Bs in a college-level course that Cs and Ds in honors and AP classes. And you can still get into a great college with just the college-level courses you need.
What would you recommend Latino children and their families?
First, don’t be afraid to seek out for help. In all city high schools there are people like me, ready to help, to give them a hand in understanding how the school works. There is always someone who speaks their language. And if I happen to not understand all they’re saying, I will go next door and ask Mr. Diaz to give me a hand. Second, I would urge the parents to know more about what courses their children are taking in school. Become interested, you might not be able to help with the homework, that’s OK, but just you know ask your student what classes are you taking? Are you getting good grades? If parents can’t get the information from the student, they shouldn’t be afraid to ask the school. Don’t be afraid to just come in and say can I speak to my child’s guidance counselor, just call the guidance counselor, and if the guidance counselor doesn’t speak Spanish I know that if there’s an important situation, there’s always someone who speaks Spanish, especially in city high schools. You know, I put myself in their shoes. If I lived in a country like Japan where I don’t know the language I would be scared to death about my children. The third suggestion is to attend the PTA nights, to come up when schools have their PTA nights, their Open Houses and come up and meet the child’s teachers, meet the child’s guidance counselor. They should become part of the school community as best as they can. I know it’s hard and I know people work. Many of our parents work day and night jobs, and I know it’s not that easy but even coming just one day to make a visit and meet your kid’s teachers and guidance counselor and be connected to the school. That’d be great.
Tell us more about the importance of the guidance counselor
If there’s one adult in the building that the kid can come in and feel comfortable with –whether they want to talk about personal stuff or whether it’s strictly academic– that’s the guidance counselor. That’s the role of the guidance counselor: just to be there. And mind you, in this day and time we are living in it’s hard to believe that any guidance counselor would tell a kid that they she or he is too stupid to go to college. But you know that when you talk to adults our age you’ll be amazed at how many people like you and me share stories like the one I mentioned at the beginning about being told that they couldn’t do this or achieve that.
This picture is a present from one of Paula’s students as a token for all her support. It depicts Paula as a youngster full of dreams.








Una hace lo que tiene que hacer…
“El aumento en la participación política de los latinos no se debe sólo a ¿Oíste? pero somos parte importante de ese cambio”