Two multilingual teachers at Oak Park Elementary School District 97, whom supporters say “champion their students,” were honored as the 2024 recipients of the Reg Weaver Human and Civil Rights Award by the Illinois Education Association.
The honor came amid big growth among Spanish-speaking students in Oak Park.
Brooks Middle School multilingual teacher Angelica Degante and Holmes Elementary School multilingual teacher Jennifer Jaros were presented the award during the IEA’s Representative Assembly March 15.
“As our community dreams, designs and defines the Portrait of an Oak Park 8th Grade Graduate, we know that staff who display the level of deeply held dedication exemplified by Angelica, Jenn and so many others will be central to our success,” said Supt. Ushma Shah. “We are grateful for their service to our students and celebrate this recognition.”
Each year, the Reg Weaver award is presented to someone whose “activities around closing the poverty gap for children in America and around the world have made a significant impact in helping poor students and eliminating poverty.”
“It is always about the kids,” Degante said. “You can put the spotlight on me if it highlights them. If it highlights the kids, that is the whole point. I told my students ‘This award is directly connected to you’.”
Degante said she has been committed to helping students since she began working in education.
She got her start in Arlington Heights, Illinois as a bilingual kindergarten substitute teacher and then a full-time teacher.
After a few years, Degante moved into a middle school setting, where she gained opportunities to try on hats and fell in love with teaching middle schoolers.
“It is a really beautiful stage to be in during a student’s academic growth,” she said.
But throughout her career, Degante always found her way back to being a bilingual teacher.
“As a bilingual and ESL teacher, I want to keep growing,” Degante said, adding the diversity found in Oak Park was a big motivator for coming to District 97. “That is how I have always been, I need to continue challenging myself. I really have learned so much in this role.”
Agile teaching
Jaros and Degante’s contributions to multilingual students and families have been a point of pride for the district, especially in the past year when the district saw an increase in student’s whose primary language wasn’t English.
As asylum-seeking migrants were transported from Texas to the Chicagoland, many remained in the Village of Oak Park.
In January, Wednesday Journal had reported that the district had begun enrolling migrant children and at one point had 52 migrant students enrolled, with significant enrollment at Holmes and Brooks.
As the district’s number of Spanish speaking student’s increased, the needs changed.
The district needed to provide Transitional Bilingual Education programs — a teaching approach focused on daily instruction in English that allows students to use their home language when needed, which is required by the state board once a school has 20 or more English language learners.
Jaros, who began helping coordinate ESL classes for adults in the late ‘90s on the East Coast, said her favorite part about being a multilingual teacher was the students and their families.
Being in a room of students who all come from different backgrounds, speak different languages and have different worldviews has been unlike anything else, Jaros said.
“For me, it is an experience unlike any other,” Jaros said. “It is also a reason why I like working in Oak Park — because we have a diverse population of students and their families.”
Before the migrant students’ arrival, Jaros said it was normal for the pendulum to swing on which language was the most spoken in ESL classes; sometimes D97 had a higher Arabic population, other times Mandarin was the most common language, she said.
However, Spanish is now the most commonly spoken language.
“I have worked with refugees before, but never from the same area and not arriving over such a short time,” Jaros said, adding that on a single day, the district enrolled more than 30 students.
While Jaros was not aware of her nomination, she is thankful to be recognized and said often teacher’s work and dedication goes unnoticed and she is grateful to know that she is having a positive impact.
At the same time, she echoed Degante: She doesn’t want to overshadow the effort by other faculty.
“I can only speak to Holmes, but at Holmes it was truly a school effort,” Jaros said. “Everybody was doing what they could.”
And being a co-winner of the award only makes it better, Degante said.
“You see that it is not just one person working with this beautiful group of students,” she said. “There are many, many people who have made it possible for these students to be successful and to be okay.”
Officials said that Degante and Jaros have been an integral part of helping newcomer families “feel welcomed and supported,” serving in various capacities including helping with registration and assisting other administrators provided support.
“In partnership with the Multilingual Parent Advisory Council and school and district staff, they have organized supply drives and community events like Multilingual Family Art Day and Multilingual Family Resource Night in order to help families thrive,” officials said in the district newsletter.
For Degante, seeing her students begin to take ownership of their education is priceless.
“They know that the content has been provided, the language has been provided, so now it’s your turn to show me the skill set,” Degante said. “You see, after a couple of months, they are glowing, they are taking charge.”