The Healdsburg Unified School District (HUSD) School Board of Trustees honored retiring Healdsburg Junior High School teacher Rosa Duran-Vazquez at their most recent meeting on June 17.
With a teaching career in Healdsburg spanning almost 30 years, Duran-Vazquez has taught at the elementary level and most recently at the junior high level where she taught sixth grade. She is the district’s lone retiree this year.
Duran-Vazquez was recognized with a certificate and many words of “Thanks” from school board trustees.
Healdsburg Junior High School Principal Chris Miller also shared words of gratitude.
“I wanted to recognize Rosa for her many years of service. She started with the HUSD in 1990. She has been dedicated to our district. She is very passionate about bilingual education and even when she wasn’t able to teach in a dual language setting, she’s been instrumental in maintaining multicultural texts in her classroom. She makes sure students, especially English learners, are not forgotten and has been a vocal advocate for them during her time. Thank you very much for your years of service,” Miller said.
Before Duran-Vazquez made her departure, she had one last assignment for school board trustees, parents, teachers, students and community members.
“I’d like to leave you with an assignment in true teacher form. It’s the product of a brainstorm as I reflected upon the end of my teaching career and these troubled times that we are in.
Someone on social media wrote, ‘The systems we have work the way they were designed to work and now we need a system that works for everyone,’” she said, noting that her assignment is a project-based learning assignment.
“Begin the practice of asking yourself, ‘What does it mean to be an anti-racist?’ Design a plan to educate all of your community — not a one-time deal, people don’t learn that way, it needs to be ongoing — educate yourself. Dialogue with others within your specific groups, don’t ask black, indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) to educate you. We have to educate ourselves and learn how to deal with systemic racism. Now you can be part of the learning process. One section of your assignment is to learn, synthesize, explain the following terms in your own words by either having a dialogue, a presentation to a small group, or have a small group present to a large group. Truly understand these terms and be able to explain these words and concepts to a small child and an adult, but be sure you include a visual aid. Here are a few examples of the words and concepts that would be on this list to educate yourself to understand racism and antiracism (See sidebar for terms and more assignment details).”
She encouraged folks to think about why not all people can see racism and what can be done to create a new system. She said being an anti-racist is a full-time job and that people need to think of race for the rest of our lives.
“Let’s work to be full-time antiracists, let’s teach anti-racism, let’s change the system, let’s be an example to our community, to our families and to our students so that together we can do the work to end systemic racism and to actually become antiracists who speak out when there is an injustice,” Duran-Vazquez said.
Board Trustee Aracely Romo-Flores called Duran-Vazquez’s assignment “Beautiful,” and said that this is exactly what needs to be done.
She also thanked Duran-Vazquez for her time as a teacher and said that she is a gift to the community.
“I am so grateful for my time with you. You always questioned things that didn’t make sense, you are such a strong advocate for students and families and just being around you, every single interaction with you with me made me a better person and I feel so blessed that my children had the benefit of having you as their 6th grade teacher,” Romo-Flores said.
