After-Class Amigo : Tutor Offers Latino Students Help, Pride

Alberto Rios, 23, looks at his students and sees himself a few years ago. He sees Latino teen-agers struggling to stay in school and stay out of gangs.

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“I’ve been there,” he said, “struggling with the language, trying not to fall behind, and every day dipping into American culture at school and then Mexican culture at home, but never being a part of either one.”

Rios directs Moorpark Pride, a new after-school tutoring program developed by El Concilio del Condado de Ventura--a nonprofit social services agency--and paid for by the city of Moorpark and the Moorpark school district.

While the school district already has bilingual education, as well as special classes for migrant students, Moorpark Pride provides a place for students to get help outside school. School officials estimate that about 10% of the high school students in Moorpark are native Spanish speakers struggling with English. Rios “is a perfect role model for them,” said Vishna Herrity, director of the school district’s bilingual and migrant education programs. “He’s been through the education system here. He’s close to them in age and he knows about their concerns. He’s an excellent model--a product of the same environment. He went to college and now he’s giving back to the community.”

A graduate of Moorpark High, Rios returns several times a week to his alma mater, trying to persuade students who are struggling in school to come to him for help. Of the more than 150 students there who might benefit from the program, only about 20 periodically come to see him.

Rios is undaunted.

“Who are you going to ask for help on your homework when your parents don’t speak English?” he said.

Jose Castro, 15, looks to Rios for help. Every day he rides his bicycle to the activity room at the old building where Moorpark High School was once housed. There, Rios has set up tables for students. Jose struggles over reading assignments, misunderstanding and mixing up English words he has heard or said only a few times.

“I don’t understand this part about the chicken,” he says in Spanish.

“It’s not chicken, it’s kitchen, “ says a smiling Carmen Gutierrez, 17, who works for Rios.

Little problems like Jose Castro’s constantly hound struggling students, Rios said.

“You start falling behind, and then it snowballs,” he said. “Eventually you just stop trying.”

Juan De La Cruz, 15, was one of those who stopped trying. The burly high school freshman did not come to Rios for help--he was ordered to. A petty vandal who was caught tagging school buildings and then driving a car without a license, Juan came in to dust and mop up the floor as part of his probation sentence. When he finished his time, he decided to stay.

“I like Alberto, and maybe I can learn something,” he said.

Rios, who has endeavored since he began working on the project a month ago to get youngsters like Juan interested, points to the former graffiti artist in triumph.

“The fact that he’s here, and he doesn’t have to be, is a success,” Rios said. “Now we just have to get him to bring his books.”

The next day, Juan arrived with his homework.

“I’m not dumb, but I get Ds--except once I got a B in art class,” he said. “I guess I’m lazy, but once you get behind it’s hard to catch up, and I can’t ask my parents for help.”

Rios said he had the same problems when he went to school.

Third youngest in a family of nine that emigrated from Mexico in 1980, Rios was the only one in his family who spoke English when he was in high school. He said he didn’t always know where to turn when he had questions. Sometimes he had to pester teachers after school to get the extra help he needed on assignments.

Still, he excelled and went from struggling with the language in his junior year to making a speech about following his dreams at his graduation in 1989.

“I submitted my speech to a contest,” he said. “You know, most minorities aren’t noticed, and I felt like someone needed to make themself known. I wanted people to hear me and say, ‘That’s somebody who’s going on to college, who’s going to make it.’ ”

It was his version of the American dream.

“That was one of my father’s happiest moments,” Rios said. “He had always wanted to see one of his children succeed like that.”

After high school, Rios attended Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. He paid for school with grants and money from odd jobs. While majoring in international economics, he lived at home and worked alongside his father in the fields.

In his final year at school, he began working for Supervisor Vicky Howard, looking at juvenile crime in Simi Valley and later organizing a youth conference at Moorpark College.

“It’s hard to find people like that, who are able to work one on one with teens,” said Howard. “He demonstrated a lot of leadership. He’s a dedicated young man.”

Rios graduated at the end of last year and was offered the Moorpark Pride job when another man quit after just a month. He said he considers it a rare opportunity, and plans to stay for at least two years before going to graduate school to study business.

“It’s worth the time,” he said. “You end up learning more than you teach. I love the work, and I know it will eventually help me get into graduate school.”

Striding through a lunchtime crowd at Moorpark High, Rios beams with confidence. He continually stops to greet students he knows.

“ Orale !” he says to a guy in black baggy pants and white T-shirt. “When are you coming by?”

The response was noncommittal.

Rios said he knows he has a long way to go. Keeping even the small number of students who come to him for help is a difficult task. But he said he is sure that he will attract more students. He has already seen the numbers grow in just the few weeks he has been at work and he has received praise from local officials.

“I think that Alberto is ideal for this because he’s home-grown,” said City Councilman Bernardo Perez. “He can relate to a lot of kids that are in the program. I think they see what diligence and perseverance get you.”

Rios uses other young Latino high school and college students as tutors, and plans to break up the work with other activities, like dances. He wants the after-school tutoring to be as warm and non-threatening as possible.

It seems to work for Juan, who said he likes to hang out even after he has finished his homework. During a break in his studies, he takes some time sketching out the image of a mad jester in green magic marker across a white board. The students smile and nod when they read the graffiti-style script, “Minds Under Craze,” that highlights the bizarre drawing.

It’s a script for the kind of pressure they all seem to know about. While Juan touches up his drawing, a woman with two toddlers in tow comes in to talk to Rios about her 16-year-old daughter. The woman is desperate. She says her daughter stays out most nights past 2 a.m., and she thinks the girl is using drugs.

“I’ll talk to her,” he tells the woman in Spanish.

Later he tries to talk to the girl at the high school, but she tells him she doesn’t need any help. It is sobering for Rios, but he takes it in stride.

“I know we can’t work miracles,” he said. “But I don’t think we have to. We just have to show them that we’re here to help, and they’ll come around. “

He said he has not given up on the girl.

“My goal is to have this place packed within the next two weeks,” he said. “I’ve just started.”