Teacher Decides It’s Time for 3rd-Graders to Go to College

Third-grade teacher Dalia Messinger asked the children in her class a traditional question and got an unnerving answer.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” she asked her 32 students at Pacoima Elementary School, most of whom live across the street in a public housing project.

“Go on welfare like my mom,” said 10-year-old Miguel, amid a chorus of “fireman” and “policeman.”

Horrified by the boy’s reply, Messinger set out on what would become a difficult crusade to send her mostly Spanish-speaking charges to college--at least for a day.

“They need to see beyond their little world,” she said. “When I first told them they could go to college and study lots of different things, they just gave me a quizzical look.”

But Messinger, 26, a first-year teacher, persevered. She got her alma mater, UC Santa Barbara, to send dozens of glossy brochures for the children with pictures of the campus tucked in the hills above long, white beaches.

“I told them that even though they can’t afford the $10,987 it costs for tuition, room and board, there are scholarships out there, especially for minorities,” Messinger said.

But first they would have to cross a more immediate financial hurdle.

The school would not pay for the field trip because a visit to UC Santa Barbara, or any other college campus, is not on a list of locations approved by the federal and state governments, which supply money for such excursions.

“It doesn’t make sense, but they can visit an airport or a bakery but not a college,” Principal Larry Gonzales said.

Messinger, who grew up in Northridge and lives in Valencia, got offers from her relatives and friends to pick up the $450 tab. But she had the children sell chocolate bars and Popsicles instead, reasoning that they would value the trip more if they invested some time and effort in it.

Today, 64 children from the school are scheduled to take the two-hour journey north to Santa Barbara. On Tuesday, Messinger discussed the trip with her students, asking them once again what they want to be when they grow up.

She turned once more to Miguel.

“I want to be a zookeeper,” he said.

“I feel like I have a lot of influence,” Messinger said. “Anything I can do to change their outlook counts.”