Starting my career as a public school teacher at Austin Independent School District in the middle of COVID-19 wasn’t the best timing on my part. But after a year of remote instruction, meeting with students via Zoom, and lecturing from my home or empty classroom, I was eager to begin teaching face to face. I was ready to forge stronger relationships with students, learn classroom management—to be a real teacher. Three months later, I walked away from the profession.
When COVID-19 hit in March 2020 and my former job working on a congressional campaign ended, I decided to go into teaching. The desire to teach came from organizing undocumented youth and students, which illuminated a passion for working with young people. I love to help people learn. I always found myself in training roles or showing new hires the ropes. Plus, the labor movement in the U.S. was gaining momentum, and I was eager to join a union. Education checked all of these boxes. I enthusiastically prepared to do what teachers had done for me: to create a calm, consistent space for young people to learn, explore their identities, and crystalize their plans.
With the support of wonderful in-laws who were educators themselves and a community cheering me on, I got licensed through an online program and landed my first job teaching English and college readiness at various levels for a public high school in Austin. The campus was a Title 1 school, meaning our percentage of low-income students was above the district average; the student body was over 80 percent Hispanic.
