'A great loss'

What is the formula for the area of a circle?” Anna Posada asked her sixth-grade math class.

“Pi [radius] squared!” three students shouted before Posada could finish asking her question. Posada, a teacher at Mineral Springs Middle School in Winston-Salem, enjoyed vigorous participation from the 18 students in her secondperiod class on May 29. All the students in Posada’s class were either African-American or Latino, the norm at Mineral Springs Middle School. After concluding her lesson on calculating the area of irregular shapes, she dismissed her students for lunch.

“The time flew by like that,” one student said. “I wish we had you all day,” another student commented. Students didn’t hesitate to compliment Posada’s talents as a teacher. On May 22, the Winston- Salem/Forsyth County Schools gave her the ultimate recognition. Posada, an immigrant from Medellin, Colombia, was named 2009 Teacher of the Year. The day before the award, Posada said one of her students asked for a moment of silence. He then prayed for her to win Teacher of the Year and for the class to all pass their end of grade exams.

All the students then said, “Amen!”

“That was so precious to me because they wanted it as bad as I did,” Posada said. “It’s good that we get positive recognition.”

The student’s prayer apparently had a ripple effect. Shortly after the award presentation by Superintendent Donald Martin, Posada learned that her students achieved 65 percent proficiency on the math component of their end of grade exams.

On May 29, Posada’s third-period class entered her room at 12:20 p.m. The ethnic makeup of the class mirrored that of her second-period class.

As they entered the classroom, students pulled classroom calculators from two plastic bins and took their seats. “Today, we’re going to work on scale drawings,” Posada announced.

After dividing the 16 students into three work groups, Posada instructed them on how to make scale drawings of Hot Wheels cars. Posada said she has taught at Mineral Springs for nearly eight years on an H-1B visa. She didn’t receive her green card until December 2008, after a six-year application process. When she moved to the United States eight years ago with her husband, Esteban, and her two daughters, she was told it would take six to eight weeks to get her H-1B visa paperwork. It took eight months.

Elizabeth Motsinger, a school board member, said Posada’s achievement at Mineral Springs offers a shining example of how immigrants can contribute to the community.

Motsinger said it is important the school system and the state’s community college system create an environment where there is real hope for success for Latino students — the hope of being able to go on to college. Currently, that hope does not exist in North Carolina.

In 2007, the NC State Board of Community Colleges decided to admit undocumented students at all of its 58 campuses. However, public outcry against the policy led to the board changing its stance and imposing a ban on undocumented students in May 2008. On April 17, the state board issued its final report on a study of alternatives to the board’s policy on undocumented students.

Nolo martinez, a Uncg professor, said north carolina faces a looming labor shortage in the areas of healthcare and education. Granting undocumented students entry into the state’s community college system and offering them a pathway to citizenship is both practical and principled, martinez said. (photos by keith T. Barber)

The report suggested three policy choices: admit undocumented students at in-state tuition rates provided they meet certain requirements; admit undocumented students at out-of-state tuition rates; or deny access to undocumented students.

Posada said she sees first-hand the impact of the state board’s decision. “It’s not the kids’ fault that they’re here illegally,” she said. “It’s the same thing like I did for my children, but I did it the right way. It’s very sad because they’re stuck — they can’t pursue their dream and these are outstanding kids.” Posada said she recently bumped into a former student who is about to enter high school. She encouraged him to begin building his college rsum, but then realized he could be denied the opportunity to go to college due to his undocumented status.

“He would be a top scholar,” she said. “It would be a big loss because I think this child could become an incredible professional, service the community in one fashion or another — it would be a loss.” Posada said several of her former students have dropped out of school.

“They see that future block and many of these children see that working in construction, for example, would produce them more money than staying in school,” she said. Martin said the school system has tracked the dropout and attrition rate for the past three years. The numbers reflect that 50 percent of Latino students drop out, 32 percent of African-American students drop out and 20 percent of white students drop out. Martin made his remarks during a public forum on education opportunities for undocumented students sponsored by the Forsyth Education Partnership on May 27. The forum included presentations by a number of speakers, including UNCG professor Nolo Martinez, who served as the state’s first director of Hispanic and Latino affairs. Martinez said a looming labor shortage of skilled workers in North Carolina is just one of the reasons the community colleges should change their admissions policies.

“It’s about doing the best we can and being a model for the world,” he said. Martinez said two of the pillars of American society are family reunification and economic opportunity, and those values should guide our state’s leaders.

“These are based on values, based on who we want to be as a nation,” Martinez said. Family reunification and hard work are values Latinos live by, Posada said. “The family concept is big time to the Latino and the dedication to work — we don’t skip a day,” Posada said. “That is one thing I have found difficult here too — the way people take off work. I always say, ‘I don’t work in a pillow factory. I work with human beings, so one day out of the job makes a big difference.’”

Motsinger said Latino culture adds a unique value to American society. “Latino family values are great family values,” she said. “We should support those values by giving them a chance to pursue the American Dream.”

Martin said he’s witnessed an explosion in the Latino student population during his 15 years as superintendent. In 1994, Latinos comprised less than 1 percent of the student population of the Winston- Salem/Forsyth County Schools. Today, Latinos comprise more than 17 percent of the overall school population. In 1994, the school system offered three English as a Second Language or ESL programs.

Currently the system offers 40 programs to 6,000 students. The superintendent said he’s often asked how many “illegal aliens” attend school in Forsyth.

To which he responds by saying he has no idea because the school system is not allowed to ask if a child is undocumented. Also, 90 percent of Hispanic students in the school system qualify for free or reduced price lunches, while 72 percent of African American students qualify and 18 percent of white students qualify. Remarkably, Hispanic students outperform African American students on EOG and end-ofcourse or EOC tests.

“In all cases, our Hispanic students are outperforming our African American students in all major metropolitan areas (of the state),” Martin said. Currently, 11 states admit undocumented students to their community colleges and universities and require the students to pay in-state tuition. Martinez said North Carolina should take “baby steps” and move toward the standard of making a college education readily available to undocumented students. The Dream Act would provide a path to UScitizenship for undocumented students if they meet specific requirements. Passage of the bill would allow the best and brightest to have entry into higher education and provide employers with a skilled workforce, Martinez said. Tony Asion, executive director of El Pueblo —the state’s largest Latino advocacy organization, also spoke at the forum. Asion said education is not a fundamental right under the Constitution, but the 1982 Supreme Court decision of Plyler v. Doe states that undocumented children that come to this country have a right to a free public education. However, when they become legal adults, a different standard is applied, and in Asion’s opinion, that is an injustice. Asion, who emigrated from Cuba at the age of 6, said he does not advocate “baby steps” but clear and decisive action by the state board to pave the way for undocumented students to get a public post secondary education.

Gary Green, president of Forsyth Tech, said Plyler v. Doe underscores a basic tenet of American society that everyone has the right to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

“How do you pursue that right without an education?” Green asked.

Green said the community college system has implemented four different policies regarding undocumented students during his tenure at Forsyth Tech, and the state board is still considering its options.

“Where North Carolina comes down on that issue, I don’t know. The position we’re in now is part of the problem. We look forward to being part of the solution,” Green said. Posada said if she could say one thing to the state board, it would be simple and direct.

“America represents opportunity and Latino parents want a better life for their children,” she said. “Whoever comes to take advantage of that opportunity has to do it the right way — stick to the rules, play fair, do what they need to do. Although this is the land of opportunity, it’s also a land where you have to work very hard for what you get.” As the students in Posada’s third period class filed out into the hallway, they passed a bulletin board that read, “How can I become a lifelong learner?” For many of Posada’s students, there’s no clear path to continue their education beyond high school. So the question on the bulletin board doesn’t have an easy answer.