World class: How one Colorado school brings the globe into the classroom
If you walk the halls of Aurora Central High School, you'll hear dozens of languages. With about 2,200 students from more than 40 countries speaking more than 50 languages, it is one of the most diverse schools in Colorado, and its principal is working to make sure the staff reflects that.
To fill his classrooms with teachers who mirror the global makeup of his students, Principal Kurtis Quig has looked overseas, recruiting educators on J-1 visas.
"I currently have 11 staff members, and I've worked out to go and find from Kenya, from the UK, from the Philippines to be in this building," Quig said.
Roughly half of Aurora Central's students are learning English, and Quig says the benefits of his international hiring strategy go well beyond simply filling open positions.
"Instead of being taught that this is the only way to do things, they're getting multiple perspectives on how teaching can be done," he said.
Among those international recruits is Mary Joy Alunday, who came from the Philippines to teach mathematics — a subject, along with science, that Colorado schools have often struggled to staff. Alunday says walking into an Aurora Central classroom was unlike anything she had experienced back home.
"I have at least 20 different cultures in the class, so that's different from what we have in the Philippines," she said.
She also quickly noticed a difference in the level of family support some students receive - or lack.
"The importance of education for Filipinos is very, we say top one," Alunday said. "I've seen a lot of kids who really want to study but they don't have a strong support from their parents," Alunday said. "So I want to stand up for them."
Science teacher Jan Michael Sotto, another J-1 visa recruit from the Philippines, said his biggest concern when he arrived was whether students would accept him.
"I want them to know that I appreciate them a lot, like they accepted me — that's my first fear," Sotto said.
That fear has since been replaced by pride.
"I have lots of kids who are excelling, doing good stuff — not only academically," he said.
The school recently hosted a Culture Fest, an all-school assembly where students showcased their heritage, as they, like their teachers, navigate new surroundings together.
For Quig, the mission is straightforward.
"Ultimate goal: student achievement, student engagement," he said. "This program does exactly that."
Aurora Public Schools currently has 16 teachers working on J-1 visas, 11 of them at Aurora Central. The J-1 visa program allows educators who are already fluent in English to live and work in the United States for three to five years.
