Monica Perez and Tanya Salazar are beginning their first year as teachers at El Camino Real Elementary School in Arvin Union School District. The first day of school is Thursday.
Perez is putting the final touches on her classroom ahead of the first day. She says it still feels surreal to be teaching in the community that raised her.
"Being a teacher here in Arvin is very meaningful because I am giving back to the community. I enjoy living in Arvin. I enjoy our students here, our parents."
The Cal State Bakersfield graduate says her path to becoming a teacher has been years in the making.
"I was an instructional aide, title three instructional aide, an ELD clerk. I worked at the front office at two school sites as an additional clerk, and so I was working my way, knowing that I wanted to be a teacher."
This year, Perez will lead students from kindergarten through third grade. Her goal is to create a peaceful, welcoming space where students feel safe, relaxed and ready to learn.
"I decided to decorate as an under-the-sea theme. I find that very relaxing and calming. And so I thought for an SDC class that that would be the best fit and theme for our classroom."
This school year also marks a major milestone for Salazar, who says she dreamed of becoming a teacher since she was a little girl.
"Which makes me like very excited, but also a little nervous at the same time. But I'm just really excited to see all the students."
Like Perez, Salazar is also a Cal State Bakersfield graduate and completed the Kern Multilingual Residency Program.
"Which allowed me to get basically a two-in-one, which was my prelim and also my dual authorization."
The program helped prepare her for her role as a Spanish language intervention teacher for students in kindergarten through sixth grade at El Camino Real Elementary.
"So I think being able to teach in Spanish and, like, having that bilingualism as an asset has really been very helpful, especially in Arvin since the population is mostly Hispanic. I feel like it breaks a lot of language barriers."
Last week, teachers went through training in preparation for the new school year.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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