The Teacher in Salinas

I was incensed when reading your Dec. 14 article about teacher George Shirley not being rehired after helping get 84 migrant students into college, nine into the Ivy League (“The Little High School That Could” by Beverly Beyette). To think that in this day and age, things like that still go on!

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so naive. In my undergraduate days at Cal State L.A. 28 years ago, I did a small study in which one of my incidental questions was: “Do you feel your teachers and counselors encouraged you to go to college?” I was very surprised that the majority of the Hispanic students answered “No,” some of them adding comments that they were discouraged from aspiring to go to college and steered toward more “practical” courses, such as auto mechanics. In other words, those students got to college in spite of their teachers and counselors. Today, many of those students are leaders in their chosen professional fields, a number are school administrators. (Nobody had better tell their sons that they should be auto mechanics!)

With regards to Shirley, a question comes to mind. Why hasn’t someone offered this wonderful man a job? He is worth his weight in gold. Sure, he has his imperfections, but didn’t the other teachers there also? The important difference is that, in the end, he and his helpers got the job done. As his student, Yvonne Francioli, said, “ . . . they only come around like him once in a while.”

CELIA PEREZ

Alhambra