Ahead of the Crystal Apple Awards on Feb. 10, Salem Reporter is profiling several educators nominated in 2023. The awards are presented by the McLaran Leadership Foundation and the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce at the Salem Convention Center. Tickets are sold out.
Becoming a counselor wasn’t Jeannette Aguirre’s plan when she started working at Roberts High School almost a decade ago.
The 35-year-old was hired to help with school testing and staff the front office. It was a last minute job after Aguirre decided to leave the construction industry and another job she’d lined up with the district fell through.
“I was like sure, anything, give me anything you’ve got,” she said.
The school’s principal took a chance on hiring her for the alternative school, which serves about 105 students who have been expelled from their home high schools.
Before long, many were crowded around her desk.
“That first year was really eye opening to me to see where students were,” she said. “I saw a lot of kids who needed love, kids who needed attention, kids who needed a connection, kids who needed a relationship, somebody to hear them. And I knew they weren’t incapable. I just knew they didn’t have the right tools.”
Aguirre saw her childhood reflected in many of the students’ stories. She grew up in a “rough neighborhood” in Los Angeles with working class parents who had an elementary school education. They encouraged her to work hard in school.
“I knew what physical labor looked like, I knew what that ‘working hard’ looked like. So on my own with my sister, we had to figure out what working hard academically looked like. Because Mom wasn’t gonna teach me how to read or how to do math,” she said.
Aguirre said she was too afraid growing up to get in trouble, but she saw many losses before graduating high school. Two close friends were killed in drive-by shootings, and she saw relatives get expelled or lost to the prison system.
“There’s lots of things that I knew I didn’t want to happen to me. And so I knew I better do good in school if I wanted to get out,” she said.
As students at Roberts got to know her, many asked why she couldn’t be the school counselor and came to her with their problems. Aguirre said they inspired her to go back to school — in part because she wanted to show them that someone with a background like theirs could earn an advanced degree.
She enrolled at Northwest Christian University, completing her master’s degree in 2017. She’d interned at other schools as part of her studies, but when Roberts’ counselor retired that year, Aguirre knew where she wanted to be. She was back at the high school in the fall of 2017.
“It was fate,” she said.
Aguirre’s day often begins with students in her office before classes start. Some need a sink to wash their hair in or a fresh pair of pants because they haven’t been home in days. Some just need a familiar face to check in with.
She makes a point of getting to know parents, calling home to let them know when students are doing well in class or making progress.
Roberts teachers who nominated Aguirre for a Crystal Apple said she is able to believe in students who have lost hope in themselves and help them find positive goals to work toward.
“She is an amazing person for the way she makes her students feel, letting them know they are worth something, and how important their education is for their future success,” one former student wrote in a nomination letter. “Because of Mrs. Aguirre helping me find myself again I don’t have regrets, I have forgiven myself, accepted my past decisions, and moved on to the greater things.”
Aguirre teared up when she talked about the students she works with.
“This is my heart. This is my home. This fills me. This gives me a reason to come in every morning,” she said.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers city news, education, nonprofits and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for a decade. Outside of work, she’s a skater and board member with Salem’s Cherry City Roller Derby and can often be found with her nose buried in a book.
