Story Archive

School Snapshot

Learning Leader Gabriela Castro works with a dual-language second-grader at P.S. 149

Gabriela Castro has been a Learning Leader volunteer for five years, and a fixture in Cristina Barrera’s dual-language third-grade classroom for two of them. “I say that Gabriela is my right hand and my left hand,” Cristina says. “When she doesn’t come, I feel like an orphan. She doesn’t ask anything—she just starts working. She knows what to do.”

Gabriela values her relationship with Cristina as well, and the bond she has forged with the students. “Honestly, I started it to be close to my son,” she says, “but the time I spend here, for myself, for my son, for the kids—I enjoy it.” Besides, Gabriela continues, “No one can pay me what I get here.”

P.S. 149 Parent Coordinator Adriana Gil and Learning Leaders volunteer Gabriela Castro work with a second-grade student

Each Learning Leader has a different reason that brings them to school, but they share the reasons why they stay. “When you come in as a volunteer, you do your time,” the school’s Parent Coordinator, Adriana Gil, explains, “but you’re learning something too—you’re getting something too.”

A New York City teacher for sixteen years agrees. “Whatever volunteers learn here—they can apply to their own kids at home. If they are in the school, they’re involved with what’s going on.” Adriana Gil was a Learning Leader for six years before she assumed her current position as the Parent Coordinator at P.S. 149. “The Parent Coordinator before me kept saying to me ‘Come to school, come to school. It will help with your English.’ So one day I come in— and I’m here for seven years.”

Adriana and Gabriela’s program at P.S. 149 not only serves students, it engages community parents and reinvigorates teachers. “There is a lot of activity for parents here,” Ms. Barrera says, “I see so many things going on with the parents. Adriana is working so hard—with the parents, with the teachers. Gabriela is here with the kids—every day. When you see people who give everything, why are you going to give any less?”