LaGuardia Community College received some national attention when an initiative that began under former President George H. W. Bush got some renewed attention from current President Barack Obama.
A representative for The White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans held a community conversation at the college on Monday, August 31, to involve educational leaders committed to improving Latino education attainment from early childhood education through college.
In her introduction, LaGuardia Community College (LAGCC) President Gail O. Mellow said the event demonstrated “a sign of the new sincere ideas that we’ve seen with this administration.” Mellow felt enthusiastic about the allocation of $12 billion to community colleges included in the stimulus package.
The director of the initiative, Juan Sepulveda, supported the importance of community colleges.
“The time is right for amazing things to be happening at the level of community colleges,” said Sepulveda, one of only three Hispanics nationwide to ever win the famed Rhodes Scholarship.
Speaking on the educational goals of the Obama Administration, Sepulveda said that the plan includes compensating professors for good and hard work, letting go of the bad ones and turning around the worst five percent of schools, a group that totals around 5,000.
Sepulveda also discussed themes that specifically affect Hispanics. He reaffirmed Obama’s support of the DREAM Act, which would offer a road to citizenship to university graduates.
In addition, he announced that, starting January 1, 2010, a Spanish language version of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, commonly known by its initials FAFSA, would become available.
After Sepulveda’s talk, members of the audience had the opportunity to add opinions and give suggestions on what education issues the Administration should focus on.
Invited by the Always Colombia Foundation, Maria Triviño, María Canavan and María Bueso – who introduced themselves as “The Three Marias” – discussed their worries as parents.
Triviño said that she wished as a parent she could help her son, Javier, more.
“He has so many aspirations,” she said, adding that her son – a senior at John Jay College – has begun to prepare for the LSAT, the entrance exam for law schools. “I just tell him that ‘a lot of lawyers have passed this exam and that he will pass it too.”
Canavan and Bueso believe that a parent’s involvement in the education of their kids is very important. In her questions and suggestions to the President, Canavan asked about all the kids whose parents have been deported.
“How will they go to school if they are separated from their parents?” Canavan wrote on a small index card.
Bueso agreed with her friends.
“The majority of problems with kids start in the home,” she said.
