By: Sarah Gray


Teachers teach, administrators administrate—but what vital roles do the other public school employees play in a student’s education? ATPE spoke with educators across the state who do their teaching not in the classroom, but from the driver’s seat of a bus, behind the front desk, or in the library.
 
 
Putting Ducks in a Row
 
Before a student can walk into a classroom, they have to enter the computer system first. That’s where Lisa Cook, Dickinson ISD’s registrar for the past two years, comes in. “Basically, anything on paper related to a kid, I’m in charge of. I’m at the beginning, I’m at the end, and everything in between,” says Cook.
 
But it’s more than just paperwork and enrollment. Cook diligently works behind the scenes to ensure all the ducks are in a row, that the information is where it should be for whenever someone might need it. Cook believes that the clerical staff keeps the school running, which in turn allows the teachers to teach. On top of that, the files Cook oversees provides vital intel to teachers.
 
“My job makes it easier on the teachers so they know a little bit of history about the student. By entering the information correctly into the system, if someone needs to know something—how to educate the student, are they special education, do they have a behavior problem, are they living with grandma—they will know how to reach this student.”
 
Cook strives to reach students and hold them accountable, and she admits she can be strict. “Rules are rules and should be followed,” she explains. So, when a student is sent to her office, Cook uses that opportunity to connect, often drawing on her own experiences, such as discovering she has dyslexia as an adult and starting college at 40.
 
“I like to be able to tell students, ‘You can do it. You can graduate, you can go to college. Don’t tell me you can’t do it. I know what you can and cannot do, and you can do this. Prove them wrong, and show them you can do it. You can do anything you want to do. You just have to try a little harder than everybody else.’”
 
For Cook, it all goes back to the fact that these students are our future, and it takes everyone in the school to prepare the students for what lies ahead.
 
“Be nice to everybody on campus—the kids, the custodian, everybody. It takes a village. It really does, so everybody has to get along and do their part.”
 
 
By the Numbers
 
Years ago, after a move to Tomball with her husband, Ronda Morgan thought about going back to the business world or taking a break to get used to the new place. But then she contracted cancer.
 
“It was quite a shock,” Morgan confesses. “It’s one of those things where I was already interviewing to go back to work and had not had a whole lot of success just yet, and I think if I had been working, I would have been ignoring the signs.”
 
Thankfully, Morgan beat cancer, and once she was ready to return to work, Tomball ISD offered her a job. After a few years in an in-school suspension position, Morgan is back with numbers. As Tomball Junior High School’s attendance secretary, she tracks 700 to 900 students every day, from class to class, coding their attendance as excused or unexcused and tracking the percentage of attendance so students can make up what they’ve missed. It’s a role that requires communication, as well as an eye for spotting anything out of the ordinary.
 
“Unfortunately, in our age group especially, we have kids that test the water and skip class once in a while,” Morgan says. “It’s my job to spot it and verify it, to work with the assistant principals to track those students down and figure out what’s going on. It is a lot of communication because you’re dealing with parents and with teachers as well, because teachers are your first line of information.”
 
The working relationship between paraprofessionals and teachers is integral to how Morgan operates at school. Recognizing that both parties can often be under stress, Morgan believes in finding balance with graciousness, communication, and knowing when to be less stringent with the rules. “I think paras, generally, are compromisers,” she explains. “They are probably the resource that is most used but least acknowledged.”
 
Being that resource is a driving force for Morgan.
 
“There’s always help,” Morgan insists. “There’s always some way to work things out, and communication will get you there. Educators need as much education as their kids do. I think everybody’s job is to help the people they come in contact with. Even to this day, even though I don’t do payroll and HR anymore, I have colleagues saying, ‘Explain this to me.’ So, I take the skills I already have and let them know that help is available. That’s really important to me.”
 
A Warm Reception
 
Priscilla Mauricio doesn’t just want you to have a good day. She wants you to have a beautiful day, a sunshine day. “I want people to see life differently,” the Rockwall-Heath High School receptionist says. “To me, I reflect what the school is about. I want people to leave with a positive vibe and happiness.”
 
Mauricio loves her job, and she’s passionate about helping anyone she comes in contact with at the front desk. “When I was younger, I always wanted to change a life and make the world a better place. If I can make one change to pay it forward somehow, then I want to try to do that.”
 
As a Rockwall ISD graduate herself, Mauricio says taking a receptionist job at Rockwall-Heath three years ago was a “life-changing” opportunity. Mauricio is the first person visitors, parents, and students see when they enter the school, and she makes it her mission to make them feel welcomed and to ensure that any questions or issues they have are taken care of by the appropriate people.
 
Of course, being the face of a high school doesn’t always mean you get sunshine in return. But Mauricio doesn’t let that behavior deter her spirit. Instead, she thinks of her grandfather.
 
“My grandfather once told me, ‘When you see people, you never know what happened to them. You don’t know if they’ve had a death in the family, a car wreck, an argument. You can’t judge a person because they’re angry.’ Maybe a parent’s student is in trouble, and they’re sad that they’re having to come to talk to a principal about it. I don’t know the situation, so I want to make them feel comfortable.”
 
Working the front desk goes beyond checking people in and out, or holding on to items for students. For Mauricio, it truly is about teamwork, the students, and the positive ways you can affect someone’s life.
 
“Teamwork between teachers and staff is important to me, and everyone in our office works really well together,” Mauricio explains. “Because I know our students are ‘just coming to school,’ but they’re also coming to gain knowledge, to learn, to experience different things that they may not have known or learned before, and to carry that on. The students mean so much to me, I get teary-eyed about it. I do what I do because I love being around people.”
 
 
Expanding Horizons
 
Damon ISD’s wee library was a collection of dust and odds and ends—until Susan Demiglio, a lifelong lover of libraries and a dedicated paraprofessional, got her hands on it. Now the library is open every day, instead of just a few hours a week. Demiglio maintains the book collection, decorates the space, and creates literature-themed crafts with students. Teachers use the library for story time or for letting students choose books, while other students rush between classes just to check out more books.
 
“I’ve seen, in this year from last year, kids are renewing their books because they want to finish them,” Demiglio explains. “They get excited because I’ve gotten in a new book that they’ve recommended. I’m just glad to see that kids are excited about reading, and not just reading to meet criteria or get points.”
 
Opening students’ eyes to the world outside Damon is a personal goal for Demiglio. Whether it’s celebrating Banned Book Week or Chinese New Year, hosting a Dr. Seuss parade or Alice in Wonderland tea party, planning a photography contest, or creating after-school book and art clubs, Demiglio doesn’t let Damon ISD’s rural identity and 200-student enrollment be an excuse for children to miss out. The cornerstone of this goal is the cultural trips Demiglio and her husband fund.
 
“The school community here is high poverty,” Demiglio says. “We felt like it was important to show that you can get out of Damon, and that there’s a lot to explore and bring back to your community. We decided to plan these cultural trips that the school doesn’t have funding for. For the first trip, we took students to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.”
In larger cities, students and their families have wider access to public libraries and cultural attractions. Demiglio dedicates her time to providing a version of that to her students. In the future, she hopes to make her library more family-oriented so that parents can also use the space.
 
“Make families feel a part of the school. I think that’s the best thing that school employees can do. We’re not just babysitters, hand-holders, or disciplinarians. We’re part of a community.”
 
Teaching from the Driver’s Seat
 
If there’s one thing Yolanda Salinas has, it’s drive. Drive to advance her career at her district, drive to increase her involvement as an ATPE member, and drive to operate in Edinburg CISD’s transportation department as a dispatcher and bus driver. It’s Salinas’s drive and passion that fuels her 12-hour workdays.
 
“You have to love what you do because if you don’t love what you do, you’ll go crazy,” says Salinas. “I feel stress free once I hop on that bus. I’m such a little person in that big bus, but I take control of my students and the wheel.”
 
Salinas has been with Edinburgh CISD for 15 years, transitioning from bus monitor and working with special needs students, to bus driver, to dispatcher. For Salinas, it’s always been about the children. They are the reason to show up to the job.
 
“These kids need attention,” says Salinas. “They need you to talk to them. They may not hear it from their parents. Those kids you’re complaining about and writing up, it’s because these kids don’t get attention at home. If you give them that attention, ask how they are doing and talk to them, I guarantee you won’t have to be saying, ‘Sit down, and be careful.’ Put them up in the front and talk to them. It’s the best therapy you could give.”
 
Salinas believes educating students happens everywhere, not just in the classroom. It is her philosophy that bus drivers are educators, too—a philosophy she instills in her employees and puts into practice every day. Salinas visits elementary schools in the district to speak about bus safety, using the Buster the Bus program. Buster is a five-year-old bus character who helps Salinas teach students and inform teachers.
 
“My show made a big difference in the kids because I was teaching them about safety, bus evacuation, and bus rules. I have taught students to do right. I tell the drivers, ‘You’re a lot more than a bus driver. You’re carrying lives. That smile you put on those kids is priceless.’ I tell everybody, being a bus driver is being a teacher.”
 
Photo, from left to right: Lisa Cook, registrar, Dickinson ISD; Ronda Morgan, attendance secretary, Tomball ISD; Priscilla Mauricio, receptionist, Rockwall ISD; Susan Demiglio, librarian, Damon ISD; and Yolanda Salinas, dispatcher and bus driver, Edinburg CISD
   

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