It is the beginning of the year for students and teachers across New Mexico, but it is the beginning of a new day and a new challenge for first-year principal Wilmer Chavarria.
Chavarria, 29, a four-year veteran English teacher at Española Valley High School, is beginning his first year as principal at Fairview Elementary School. While younger than the average administrator, Chavarria’s inspiration for becoming a principal was born out of being a teacher.
“It was easy to fall in love with education,” Chavarria said. “I also quickly realized while you can make a lot of change happen in your classroom and you can do wonders within your classroom, sometimes you feel like your hands are tied at a more systematic level. I did have to face a lot of frustrations every once in a while because of leadership and so I thought, ‘I wonder if I can do even more than I’m doing as a leader?’”
Chavarria’s love for education began at an early age, and was instilled by his mother.
“Education has always been an ideal in my family,” he said. “It had very real implications for us in my family. I was born in a refugee camp during the Nicaraguan Civil War, the Sandinista Contra War, and my mother spent nine years in the camp. Where she comes from, we did not have schools, but she understood, I don’t know how, but she understood that education was the only way to escape that extreme poverty.”
Tough start
Chavarria and his family was repatriated into Nicaragua where they were forced to live in the streets. His mother had to sell bread in the streets so that they could eat, but she still made sure that he and his siblings went to school every morning.
“She still, very religiously made sure that we all went to school in the mornings,” he said. “Because she understood that eventually education would literally be the thing that saved us. You talk about saving, that is what saving is. You’re in extreme poverty, you have nothing, you don’t even have food for tomorrow. I appreciate having a mother that understood that education, even in a country that is torn by the war, that education can save you.”
The schools that Chavarria and his siblings attended had no doors, no windows. They were the bombed out shells of his country, Chavarria said. The teachers served the students on a volunteer basis and were, as a reward for their services, given a bag of beans or rice once a month.
“We didn’t have notebooks, pens nothing,” he said. “I think when you want to make education happen, you make it happen. Teachers wanted it to happen, students wanted to learn and it happened.”
Chavarria, having applied for his alternative license to teach at Española Valley High School, finished his teacher certification courses at Northern New Mexico College in conjunction with finishing his Master’s in Leadership courses at the University of New Mexico. While he started his career teaching high school, it was a conscious decision to go into elementary education.
“All grades are critical, every level is important,” he said “I feel that if you can really catch them when they are young, that you have the upper hand.”
Fairview plans
Chavarria has plans for Fairview Elementary School and has been working closely with the teachers and the community over the course of the summer to plan different routines and strategies that the school is going to implement as a team. He is actively working to create programs that align with his personal educational philosophy and with the philosophies and experience of his teaching staff.
Chavarria said he believes there is no difference between Española students and what people view as “privileged” areas and that his students can be just as successful.
“I feel that if we do the best we can do that our students can perform just as well as other communities that we tend to see as privileged,” he said. “I want to foster that mentality throughout the community, so that we don’t stay in a defeated kind of sense that we won’t ever be as good as.”
To aid him in his goals for his first year, Chavarria plans to implement teacher rounds, co-teaching, collaboration and he plans to be in the classrooms a lot.
“I don’t want to change too much, too fast,” he said. “Change is good, but too much change can be overwhelming. I’ve been proposing things, and testing the waters, but I have been so amazed by how ready teachers are here to support me, and they understand that I will need a lot of support. I have been so grateful with how understanding they have been and how helpful. I could not ask for a better team.”
Teachers excited
Teachers at Fairview Elementary School are equally excited about having the young and teacher-oriented Chavarria as their new principal. Fourth grade teacher Margie Espinosa, a nine-year veteran of Fairview Elementary, is excited by Chavarria and the potential that the new school year brings.
“I can see a different vision, an excitement,” Espinosa said. “This is his first year being a principal, but I can see an excitement in all that he has planned for the school and the teachers. He is really focused on making the teachers happy, and allowing us the time we need to be in our classrooms. He is somebody that relates to the teachers.”
New teachers to Fairview Elementary are equally excited by Chavarria and his plans for the school. Roselyn Niño, a first year special education teacher at Fairview Elementary, is excited to have a youthful principal.
“I am really excited,” Niño said. “ It is going to be great year for us. He is open minded, it will be easier for us. He has a lot of ideas, he is collaborative and idealistic, he says he is going to co-teach, so I am excited about that.”
Chavarria believes that his training and his lifelong love and respect for education has prepared him fully for his new position and he feels that he is ready to do what needs to be done for his students, his teachers and the Fairview Elementary School community.
“I understand the nature of my position,” he said. “ I understand the nature of my responsibility and I want to provide the type of leadership and structure that the school needs, without being mean or stuffy about it”.