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Date: 4/5/2022
HOLYOKE – Six Holyoke Public Schools educators have been honored and selected to receive the Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation’s Pioneer Valley Excellence in Teaching Awards this year.
With the announcement on March 1 came a visit to each educator from Superintendent/Receiver Anthony Soto who came with flowers, balloons and a proclamation from Holyoke Mayor Joshua A. Garcia informing them of their honor.
Corinne Moguel, a school counselor at the Holyoke Science, Technology, Engineerign and Mathemetics (STEM) Academy, focuses on the social and emotional growth of her middle school students and typically finds herself going above and beyond as an advocate for students and their families. Moguel is one of six Holyoke educators winning this award, joining third grade teacher Nana Boadu Ansah, fourth grade teacher Abigail McAndrew, RISE program teacher Caron Dewey and English as a second language teachers Mary Becker and Mario Feliciano.
Moguel said she thinks a lot of the success she has had as a counselor to help her receive the honor comes from the process of identifying her students background to understand where they are coming from to properly address their needs. She moved to the Holyoke school system in 2018 following seven years as a counselor at an Albany, NY, elementary school.
She said the two populations she has now worked in during her career share similarities in demographics and students who can sometimes come from places of struggle due to inner city issues like poverty, single parent households and homes where a parent is incarcerated.
Moguel said she has consistently worked towards creating resources for students and families to help them become more successful and better realize their potential. Through group work, family advocacy and working with outside agencies Moguel has helped bring in resources to help break the generational cycle that is lingering in both communities she has served.
“It’s a very trauma struck environment,” Moguel said. “A lot of people ask me, ‘What drives you to do it?’ It’s by nature. We are trying to create a pipeline and bridge the gap and the inequities that they often see.”
Last year Moguel and her team developed a system called The Collective where the dean of students, the principal and assistant principal, and Moguel herself collectively worked on what the district calls Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS).
MTSS is a systemic, continuous improvement framework in which data-based problem-solving and decision making is practiced across all levels of the educational system for supporting students. Moguel added she thinks the biggest tier to focus on it the universal or core instruction tier.
“I do a lot of work with teachers with trying to help them see you have to look beyond the behavior, there’s so much more under the surface,” Moguel said. “A kid doesn’t come to school everyday just to say ‘F you’ or to go off, there’s something going on with them and they don’t have those tools yet.”
She added there is a big push within the Holyoke schools to work within the system in order to create the positive and meaningful changes that stretch the future generations to come.
“The system needs to be fixed, the same ones that have failed a lot of families and students in this particular city over time. They can do it and that’s one thing I tell them, no matter what the statistics say, you can and you will be somebody and something you would aspire to be,” Moguel said.
Moguel said she thinks of two student success stories all the time that she has experienced, one from her previous school and one from her time so far in Holyoke.
She said one student in her old Albany location was practically non-verbal when he first started at the school and would have many different behavioral outbursts. She added while it was always tough to see a student struggling in such a way, she started working closely with the family to uncover the root of some of the issues.
“That’s where my lens for trauma informed work opened up because I then found out some of the major things that happened to that student in utero and that really had an effect on how that student started to come up from K-4,” Moguel said. “When we started to work through those things that happened and when we understood what mom went through in utero and what the student went through along with some other traumatic events, we started using a trauma informed lens to not punish that student, but to create the system and the different resources that student needs.”
She continued that by the time the student was in fourth grade it was like looking at a whole different student as this student came out of his shell. Moguel said the student was happier and started communicating much more and even created friendships. She added she still keeps in touch with the mom of the student and is forever grateful for the experience as it provided a valuable learning lesson.
“They start out as these little flowers and when you start to see them bloom into something positive its such an amazing thing,” Moguel said. “That was a moment when I realized I need to look further than who’s standing right here. Let’s look all the way at the beginning and see what has happened that it has really opened my lens to do the work I do here [in Holyoke].”
Moguel also mentioned a student she has had at the STEM Academy that was a new sixth grade student who just moved and had some behavioral issues as well. After identifying the students needs and again looking beyond the child at their surface level with their behavior, Moguel said the student had a successful turn around the remainder of his middle school tenure and grew relationships with his staff to the point that Moguel said they were attending his sport games and providing a consistent relationship at school for the student.
“The biggest thing was that student was never seen for who they were and that goes back again to just looking beyond that person in front of you and looking beyond the behaviors and see what are their strengths, what can they do,” Moguel said. “The relationship is the most powerful tool you can have because then they understand some days, I’m going to be tough because I’m going to push you because I believe in you. I’ve been in your shoes and I’m not going through what you’re going through, but I can help you, I can listen, and I can be there for you.”
Moguel said while humbled and elated to receive this award for her success with her students that the work is never done. She is continuing to strive to flip the system to create a true second home feeling for her students and create a system where the students at Holyoke are also getting what students in surrounding communities that are more fortunate get.
She noted that she has seen parents reluctant to come into school offices and engage a whole lot with teachers and counselors as she feels like many of them could have trust issues from possibly being failed by the very same system their child is now in.
“There’s minimal trust. Relationships are key. If parents don’t trust you, kids have that same trickle effect,” Moguel said.
Moguel added that one thing that has always stuck with her and even now with the honor was her grandmother who raised her. She said her grandmother would often tell her, “To whom much is given, much is required,” a quote from the bible that taught her the lesson of sacrifice through her hard and dedicated work.
“She would say when God gives you all these amazing gifts, it’s gonna require you to do so many different things – sacrifice, and breath life into people even when you think they’re not taking in what you’re saying,” Moguel said.
The six educators receiving the Pioneer Valley Excellence in Teaching Award will be honored during an in-person banquet at the Log Cabin in Holyoke on May 11.
There they will each receive an engraved plaque and a check for $250, along with tuition incentives and scholarships offered by seven major colleges and universities in the region.
Until then and beyond then, Moguel will continue her hard work in establishing a better system for students to rise out of their situations and build upon who they are as children going into their high school years.
“I’m so thankful to be able to be recognized for the work but it's both humbling and also it's just what I’m supposed to do,” Moguel said.