I have been involved with California public elementary schools since 1980. Public schools were a great place for my brother and me to find a great education, learn English, and become bilingual and bicultural individuals after arriving from El Salvador as babies. I grew up in Los Angeles, California and moved to San Diego to receive a Geological Sciences Degree in 2006 and work in the SD Natural History Museum as a paleontological assistant and children’s field instructor. I became a bilingual teacher with a scholarship and a year in Queretaro, Mexico as part of the BCLAD International Programs through SDSU. I worked in low income Spanish-speaking communities in San Diego as a bilingual teacher before arriving in Berkeley. I am now happily teaching 3rd grade at Rosa Parks, and in my 6th year of working in a dual-immersion program. I have a loving wife who is also a teacher and we are raising a bilingual and bicultural son.