Educator and Student Support

Contagious College-Going Culture in Elementary School – Video

Often, the question posed to students is: Are you going to college? But at Rebecca Sánchez’s school, the question is: Where are you going to college? At the time of this recording, Ms. Sánchez was the principal at Gus Guerra Elementary School in the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo school district in South Texas serving a largely economically disadvantaged population, with about half of the students being emergent bilingual students and a high number of migrant students.

In this interview for IDRA’s Equity Hub, she describes how her campus has been transformed through a collaboration with IDRA that included classroom demonstrations on effective instructional strategies and student engagement. She also discusses the relationship the school is building with families as well as the introduction of Semillitas de Aprendizaje in early childhood classrooms. Ms. Sánchez is interviewed by Nilka Avilés, Ed.D., an IDRA senior education associate.



This resource is part of the IDRA College Preparation – Online Technical Assistance Toolkit.