Dulce Noriega (Cohort 02-04)

            After graduating from the program, Dulce went back to California, where she married and lived in Monterey County, Salinas, California.  She worked as a fourth grade teacher in a district that had a high EL population and migrant community.  Most of the students´ parents worked in the fields.

            Dulce then went back to the border where she had grown up to her own middle school where she worked as an 8th grade language arts teacher.  The experience was wonderful, yet frustrating.  Times had changed, and so had some of the staff.  Due to NCLB  the school like many others found itself pressed. Thus the district thought that by having its principals and superindents monitoring the border crossing on foot they could identify students, turn their names into the schools and have them pay out of state tuition or have them pulled out of the school district.  Most of these kids could not stay afterschool for the tutoring because they had to travel back to the border, or the school could not get in touch with their parents because their parents lived across the border. 

            Dulce and her husband then settled in a small town call San Jacinto. This town is located an hour south of L.A  and 20 minutes north of Temecula (the wine country of Southern California).  She is one of the few Latina teachers in her district. She is currently teaching fifth grade.