The big news at St. Martin DePorres Academy for Virginia Cordero’s family this week wasn’t the expected continuing stellar performance of sixth-grade wonder Xena, but a major change in mom’s life that will bring her to school more.
This was the week before the first marking period and that nerve-wracking first round of teacher conferences at the parochial school in the Hill. The Independent has been following Xena and her mom and two other families this school year in a look at different models of parent involvement in education.
Virginia Cordero runs a business called Family Fencing and Handiwork, which Xena named. It was established after Xena’s beloved father died two years ago. The business is thriving. “We’re booked up,” the bubbly Cordero said, “all the way until January. It’s just terrific.”
The heart of the business is residential fence building, which Cordero does with Xena’s two older brothers, Maurice and Alex. (Maurice’s child, Malik, age six is also pictured.) Cordero also has been working as a night-shift waitress.
With the waitressing, Cordero had been able to work with her sons only on weekends, when Xena also came along to help out. The success of the business is enabling Cordero to quit her long-time job as a waitress on the night shift. That will happen next week.
And she knows what she’ll do with the new time in her schedule.
“It definitely will give me more time to volunteer for the school,” she said.
Cordero already conceived and runs a Monday afternoon workshop for eight kids doing creative embroidery and sewing. In that she is not atypical of another dozen or 15 SMPA parents who contribute mightily to the extended ‑ay program — classes, workshops, sports, music and other activities that occupy all SMPA kids from 3 until 6:30 p.m. pick-up.
Cordero’s love for the school keeps growing, and along with that the volunteering.
She’ll have more flexibility to her schedule now. “Next week I’m going to be my own boss,” she said with delight. “I’ll give myself all the time that I need.”
In the photo you see her holding a sheet whose title says “Parent Volunteer Opportunities.”
That document was distributed Wednesday night when SMPA, its halls newly festooned with banners and pennants from Bucknell, Penn State, Albertus Magnus, Fisk, and other colleges, held its first “family forum” for its parents. It was an intimate get-together in which the director and all the parents shared their views of what is working well in the school and what not, from nuts-and-bolts to issues of pedagogy.
The Hill-based school, with only 80 students now, has nevertheless grown considerably since it began in a smaller building in Hamden. That was one of the challengess discussed, a feeling that with the frenzy of arriving and dismissal, teachers and parents and kids are not getting to know each other in the same way as before.
“This is a new building,” said Cordero, “and yes, there is a glitch or two we have to work out. In the old building,example, I used to arrive wearing these Mickey Mouse slippers that I had bought in Florida, and each time I arrived and dropped off Xena, Ms. Surowiecki [the principal, shown in this photo with Cordero and religion teacher Jim Messina] would smile. She told me tonight that she missed that smile, and I miss hugging her.
“‘You know,’ I told her, ‘it’s because in this building you’re way up on the third floor. And I can’t climb up every day to get that hug!’”
That they’ll work out this problem, however, Cordero has no doubt. “There are always problems, but as long as Xena keeps getting those As and Bs and as long as she comes home every day, after these long days, with a smile on her face, that’s perfect. Xena is my life. I would not entrust her all day to any other school. They love her and talk to her. In a lot of other places children get lost.”
That depth to which this child — and by extension most of the kids at SMPA — are known by their teachers came through in an anecdote told to a reporter by Mr. Messina. A veteran of all three years of SMPA’s life as a school, Messina said that he taught religion to Xena last year. She became involved in the school’s peer ministry program and then in the peace and justice club. Through the latter, the kids volunteer at old-age homes, shelters, and soup kitchens.
“One day, during one of our sessions about the work we were doing,” Messina said with quiet pride, “Xena turned to me and said. ‘You know, I never realized until now that I’m smart.’”
It was the kind of moment that lives forever in the life of a teacher, and a school. Messina said that the extended parental involvement — this year, with the influx of new kids, the number of 5th grade parents participating has grown — helps to make the school like a caring family. “When you have a dozen or so parents, two or three, say, from each of our seven classes, here at the school with regularity — working in the office, helping out in the cafeteria, running the homeroom club — then the partnership between home and school is strengthened, well, the kids know that the two work together.”
Xena still continues her wondrous ways — peace and justice club, a major role in Hairspray, which the drama kids are putting on, and chess club in which she excels. Xena’s character, a quiet solidity and thereness, is such that, as we have reported, the mother has seen her daughter as a rock of support, especially in the immediate period after her father died died. “All Xena’s wanting to help other people,” said Cordero, “all that comes from her dad.”
Last week, Xena had a mini-crisis of her own. “She had been absent for a day from school because of asthma,” said Cordero. “This was around Halloween time. And she had a make-up sheet to do the work, but when she sat down to do it, she couldn’t find it. She was absolutely in tears because the sheet of paper was misplaced and even if Xena did the work, which she remembered, but not on the specific sheet, she ran the risk of getting a C. By her lights, that was very bad, and she began to cry.”
Normally, Xena is the one who helps her mom finds things that have been misplaced, often in plain sight. But not this time. “I looked and looked and finally realized that the paper might be in the car. Bingo! Sure enough, it was there with all the Halloween stuff.
“Xena usually comes through in a crisis for me,” she said with a smile, “but this time it really felt good to come through for her, even in this modest way.”
Other subjects discussed at the family forum were the suggestions to parents from the principal that they absolutely remove all televisions and computers from their children’s rooms. There were reports some kids fell asleep watching TV, woke up in the middle of the night, and when they couldn’t get back to sleep, continued watching. The principal’s advice: Keep the electronics in public places.
That issue is not a problem with the Corderos. Xena continues to do well, is proud of her mom’s success in business. She continues to accompany her on weekends, reading and helping out at the various jobs where mom and her two brothers work.
Mom thanked daughter once again for naming the business Family Fencing, which Xena did with full knowledge of the pun, the double meaning, although there was not too much fencing or dueling going on in the Cordero family. In fact, quite the opposite of fencing. Xena said, however, she was thinking it might be fun to learn fencing, as in swords. “Maybe I’ll talk to Ms. Suriowicki,” she said, “for next year.”
And what additional volunteer activities is Virginia going to check off her list? “My three top choices,” she said, as the family prepared to go home, “are to chaperone the kids on their field trips. Then to work on Saturdays with the parent teams who come in to do clean up. And I’d also like to help out with the main office.”
For previous installments in the Independent’s series on parental involvement in local schools, click on:
Dad Meets The Teachers. All Of ‘Em
Ms. Lopez Moves Brandon’s Seat
Night-Shift Waitress Gets Xena To Class On Time
Fifth-Graders Get “Amistadized”
Board of Ed To Parents: Get Involved!
Task Force Hones Plan for Kids