Loyal to Supporting Education for Latine Students

Melissa Pérez earned her undergraduate degree in French and Spanish with teacher licensure K-12 from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.  She earned her Master's degree in Spanish Phonetics and Linguistics with a focus in Curriculum Writing from the Universidad Iberamericana in Puerto Rico.  She was a classroom Spanish and French teacher for twelve years and has served as the World Languages Specialist for Durham Public Schools since 2012.  She is also a certified Spanish/French Interpreter and has been very involved with the DPS Spanish-speaking Community since she began work in DPS a teacher in 2006.  She is an equity warrio and advocate for marginalized communities and has an enormous passion for supporting our Spanish-speaking families in particular, coming from a Mexican-American family herself.  Because of this passion and her deep cultural and personal connections to the Latine community, the idea of Grupo LEAL was manifested.  After careful analysis of various district data sets by subgroup, Melissa discovered that our Latine students are a subgroup faced with particular and unique personal, social, cultural and academic challenges that differ from other subgroups.   Particulary, Latina student data was even lower than Latino results.  From that data analysis discovery, Melissa's extensive knowlege and experiences in Latine culture and the Spanish language, Grupo LEAL was born.