After 12 years of teaching in Nicaragua, Emilce González decided to apply for a program that would allow her to teach students in the United States. She and Marian Mendoza, a nine-year veteran of the profession in Honduras, are two of nearly a dozen international teachers hired by San Antonio Independent School District to teach in dual language classrooms.
Mendoza is teaching pre-kindergarten and González second grade at Ogden Elementary. Both are struck by the stark differences between teaching in their home countries and in the U.S.
“I consider it [the U.S. Education system] very organized,” said González. “There’s a department and coordinators for every area. In my opinion, this allows for more success in the students’ learning.”
In Honduras, public educators with tenure earn an average of 20,000 to 25,000 lempiras per month, equal to about $800 to $1,000. Mendoza said tenure was difficult to earn, even after nearly a decade of teaching.
Mendoza said she is enjoying having so many more resources for her students than she had in Honduras, where she had to fundraise with parents just to get chairs for her classroom.
“It’s totally different,” said Mendoza. “There’s so much disorganization. … You’d never see a school like the one I’m at now in my country. We are so far from finding a similar system.”
González and Mendoza are two of 23 teachers from Latin America who were hired through a partnership with the district and the International Alliance Group (IAG), which recruits and places international teachers in U.S. jobs. The SAISD board of trustees approved using $220,000 in federal pandemic relief funding to hire IAG to help address a teacher shortage affecting both San Antonio and the nation.
Of the teachers hired, 11 are from Mexico, four from Honduras, four from Colombia, three from Nicaragua and one from Costa Rica, said Esmeralda Alday, SAISD’s executive director of dual language, ESL and migrant staff.
The Latin American teachers’ visas allow them to teach at any SAISD school for three years, with the possibility of applying for up to six years.
SAISD has hired teachers from outside the U.S. before, but previously worked with the Texas Education Agency to bring in teachers from Spain. With the new hires, the district now has fewer than 10 vacancies for dual language educators.
Hiring bilingual teachers has recently been a challenge in San Antonio, Alday said, because dual language teachers must pass bilingual certification exams to become bilingual educators.
“It’s not because these teachers [come from] homes that spoke Spanish in the home growing up, it’s because they went to school and got stripped of it,” she said, referring to the punishment Spanish-speaking students once received in schools for not speaking English. “Even if we wanted to hire all these bilingual teachers for 62 schools, they’re not here.”
González and Mendoza hope to stay at Ogden as long as possible and are excited to learn from San Antonio students and share their respective cultures with students.
“Some children speak Spanish and understand many words,” said González. “I know my goal is for them to learn Spanish, and I tell them I speak two languages and that I can communicate with more people.”
González, who taught English in Nicaragua, said she is happy to see that students want to learn Spanish.
“I want to contribute my experience as a Latina educator from another country that speaks a different language and show students [anything is] possible, that even though we’re from different parts of the world, we can do different things,” said González.
Mendoza said she wants her students to be as proud of their own roots as she is of hers and plans on sharing that message by showing them traditional Honduran celebrations.
“I even want to show them this little dance from my country, El Sueñito,” which Mendoza described as a dance to celebrate Honduras’ independence day in September.
“We also have a Fiesta Catracha. The parents bring typical foods from our country and the children show up with their traditional clothing and eat,” she said. “I always love to share traditional dances with students because the parents love watching them dance. I would love to share my culture with them and [have] them share their culture with me.”
Of the Latin American teachers hired by SAISD, 17 are currently teaching across the district’s 61 schools with dual language programs. The others have not yet arrived from their native countries. Each teacher has a Visiting International Teacher Certificate, which allows them to receive the same pay for full-time employment and benefits as regular bilingual education teachers: $55,500 a year and a $3,000 bilingual stipend.
Ogden Principal Nicanora Martinez said González and Mendoza were hired because they were already bilingual and could fulfill the dual language program’s mission of improving sociocultural competence by teaching students about their unique cultures.
“They could realize the key importance of having that bilingualism, because they were doing it in their country already,” said Martinez. “The qualities they bring are not qualities you’re going to easily find in any teacher around here.”
