‘Homegrown’ at MUSD,
Alvarado making a difference for 2nd graders
Maria Alvarado may be a new teacher, but she knows Maricopa Unified School District inside and out. She started preschool at MUSD and graduated from Maricopa High School in 2013.
“I think it’s a unique perspective going from a student in this school district to being a teacher,” she said. “It’s very different.”
She said as a student she didn’t understand what was happening behind the scenes at school, how much concern the teachers had for the students and “how everything works.”
Coming back, she said, it has been interesting being on the flipside of the coin, “to be the one responsible for my kiddoes.”
In her second-grade classroom at Santa Rosa Elementary, the motto has been “We learn from our mistakes.” That has even expanded to “We learn from each other’s mistakes” as they work together to learn the material.
Alvarado returned to MUSD after college for a semester of student teaching at Maricopa Elementary School at the end the 2017. When a full-time, real-deal teaching position opened in the middle of the school year, she landed the job. She replaced a second-grade teacher at Santa Rosa in January 2018.
“That was a toughie,” she recalled. “They had their own system going when I got there.”
Her dream was to teach fourth or fifth grade, so she was uncertain about taking on second grade, where some of the students did not yet know how to read or were limited in their ability. A year into her teaching career, she has determined her students should be able to read on their own by second semester if they were going to have any chance of success as third graders.
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Maria Alvarado has gone full circle at Maricopa Unified School District, attending MUSD schools since preschool and now coming back to teach second grade at Santa Rosa Elementary. Photo by Jim Headley
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