Three East Dallas educators named finalists for teacher & principal of the year awards

Without great teachers and principals, great students probably wouldn’t exist.

To recognize the work of educators in our city, Dallas ISD officials named multiple finalists for the Teacher of the Year and Principal of the Year. On May 6, the winning teachers and principals of year on the elementary and secondary levels as well as at choice/magnet schools will be announced and receive monetary awards.

Three of these finalists work at schools in our neighborhood. Though they differ on which schools they serve at and the subjects they teach, their goals are largely similar — giving every student they come into contact with the best education possible.

My job is to make you great.”

That’s sixth grade reading and language arts teacher Monica Robinson’s mission in her classroom at Robert T. Hill Middle School near Old Lake Highlands.

Robinson, who is in her 13th year of teaching, recalled one of her former students who didn’t know any English, but she had big dreams of becoming a doctor.

“She was the most diligent and hard working student,” Robinson says. “She came every day. Any tutoring opportunity, she was right there with me. She trusted the process that I was putting in front of her.”

That student is now getting ready to start medical school. Looking back on her career so far, Robinson recalled seeing former students excel as the most special moments.

“It’s just wonderful getting high school graduation invitations because they remember,” she says. “They remember, ‘Ms. Robinson was a little tough, but she got me through it.’”

Robinson, who graduated from W.W. Samuell High School near Pleasant Grove, eventually followed in the footsteps of her mother who was also an educator. But at first, she didn’t think teaching was for her. She took on a corporate job, and it wasn’t until she was volunteering at a school that she felt inspired to be a teacher.

“One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I was in the classroom,” Robinson says.

Despite not initially being drawn to the profession, Robinson now feels like teaching is her God-given gift.

“I walk in this room, and I know the Lord is with me,” she says. “The Holy Spirit drives that, and he gives me exactly what I need to present to the students what they need to be great readers and writers.”

Robinson likes to encourage her middle school students to try out new activities, find out what their gift is and learn what they need to know before going to high school. In her classroom, she calls understanding how to read and write a “life changer,” and she aims to introduce her students to books that they can relate to. Specifically, she pointed out Mango Delight by Fracaswell Hyman and The Trials of Apollo series by Rick Riordan, both of which include stories about young people.

“One of the things that we run into now, children are finding less and less time to pick up a book,” Robinson says. “They have devices, but that doesn’t necessarily equate to good reading and employing those skills. So, I like these writers because they really do allow the reader to connect without feeling overwhelmed.”

Last year — in what could be considered foreshadowing her recent recognition from Dallas ISD — the Greater East Dallas Chamber of Commerce named Robinson as one of the Teachers of the Year.

“When you get these honors, it’s just so affirming to know that the community is watching, and it’s like the community cares,” she says.

Being named a finalist for Dallas ISD’s Secondary Teacher of the Year made Robinson feel “super proud.”

“There’s so many good teachers, I think, in Dallas ISD that it’s like, wow, you get that opportunity to hold that title,” she says. “I take it very seriously. But it is a true honor.”’

And of course, Robinson told her mother about the news.

“She’s totally excited,” she says.

Old East Dallas’ Innovation, Design, Entrepreneurship Academy educator Rachael Esquivel is the kind of person who you would want to teach you algebra.

Esquivel exudes an easygoing attitude. She even spared some sympathy for the reporter who was late to meet her on account of not finding the school’s front door easily. But more than that, it’s important to her to form personal connections with her students to teach them math.

“Students aren’t going to learn if they don’t like you,” Esquivel says. “Students don’t like coming to math class, but they like coming to my class, they’ve told me.”

Esquivel is also a math coach, which means she helps out in other classrooms in whatever area that’s needed, like classroom management or providing more one-on-one teaching time with the students.

Though she studied sociology and human development in college, Esquivel always had an interest in teaching math and mentoring young people. When she came to Dallas from Connecticut, she was working with an AmeriCorps service program called City Year. The nonprofit deploys AmeriCorps members who are ages 17-25 to schools to work with students on academic, workforce and interpersonal skills.

“It allowed me to be in the classroom without being the teacher,” Esquivel says. “It allowed me to form student relationships, to see that side of teaching that you normally don’t get to see. I wasn’t in charge of lesson plans. I wasn’t in charge of grading or any of the other side of teaching. It was really just helping the kids with Algebra I in the classroom and building relationships with them.”

Esquivel was based in Spruce High School near Pleasant Grove, and the experience inspired her to earn her teaching certificate and continue serving at Spruce. She took the next step in her career and became a math coach at Innovation, Design, Entrepreneurship Academy, where she is in her second year.

Teaching Algebra I is challenging nowadays for a few reasons. For one, it’s a subject on the state’s standardized test, and that adds pressure on educators, Esquivel says. And students are still dealing with the learning disruptions that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be a big problem in math because the lessons build upon each other. Children also tend to have shorter attention spans now, and it’s more difficult to keep them engaged.

Esquivel focuses on what she can control and tries to make learning fun in her classroom. She hosts a weekly auction for prizes that students can earn tickets for by helping their peers, doing their work or scoring a grade of 100 on an assignment.

The best parts of teaching for Esquivel are helping students learn, seeing them earn good grades and creating a classroom environment where they feel comfortable.

“I want them to remember that someone was on their side,” she says. “I want them to remember that I took time to get to know them.”

Solar Preparatory School for Girls Principal Olivia Santos remembers being a shy little girl who was able to come out of her shell thanks to a teacher. Santos credited that educator for helping to inspire her career.

“I was a pretty quiet child,” she says. “I really didn’t speak at all until second grade, and I felt like that teacher in second grade just encouraged me to bring out a side that I hadn’t before then. And I realized, if one person can do that for someone, that was something that I wanted to be for somebody else.”

In preparation to one day become an educator, Santos took notes about every teacher she had and what projects she enjoyed the most. She was actually able to incorporate her ideas from her notebook into her own classroom when she joined the profession.

Santos, who grew up in South Texas, has worked in East Dallas DISD schools for 20 years, ever since she graduated from Southern Methodist University. Given her experience as a second grader, she was drawn to elementary grades, second through fifth, and liked being able to teach every subject.

Santos’ career eventually led her to Solar Prep for Girls, which is on North Henderson Avenue near Vickery Place, offers pre-kindergarten through eighth grade classes and was founded in 2016. She was on the founding leadership team and is currently in her ninth year of serving at the campus in various roles and fifth year as principal. Before being at Solar Prep, Santos noticed a similar trend of girls lacking confidence in her classroom.

“I saw that a lot of my girls as a teacher would hesitate to speak up, hesitate to be the center of attention,” she says. “That was something that really did stick out to me, and I thought about the fact that I just had my first child, and my first child was a girl, and so I thought, what kind of future do I want to see for her and what does that environment look like?”

Santos saw a confidence boost in the girls at Solar Prep right away.

“I immediately was a believer in this,” she says. “We had a lot of questions from parents about, ‘What’s going to happen when they join the boys?’ and ‘Are they going to be just as confident?’ But as we have seen now, our girls move into high school, it’s almost like that they’re that much more confident. I think that they don’t even see it as a barrier or a factor, and in fact, they’re that much more ready for any challenge.”

The success of Solar Prep for Girls is evident by the alumni who come back to share how the school impacted them, and that has been Santos’ favorite part of the experience. She also enjoys seeing Solar Prep leaders go on to become principals at other schools and take what they learned at Solar to improve another campus.

“Whether it’s students or adults, I get really excited to be able to see our impact spreading into different spaces,” Santos says.

As a finalist for Choice/Magnet Principal of the Year, Santos said she was surprised by the recognition and praised the work of her peers at Dallas ISD choice/magnet schools.

“I think that we have just a lot of really creative leaders that I learn a lot from every day,” she says. “I am just excited to be able to work alongside them every day, and to be able to represent them is really wonderful.”