SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — A new school year brings a year of firsts for one Spokane Valley school.
A new building.
A new name.
The same mission to immerse students in another language and culture.
Joyful noise and mariachi filled the air along 4th Avenue around Ruben Trejo Dual Language Academy Thursday. The kind of joy that comes from having a place.
Principal Mauricio Segovia was front and center as hundreds of students filed into the outdoor assembly; he high-fived each one and greeted them by name.
"Every time I see your face, when I give you five, my bucket gets filled of joy and happiness. And that will happen every morning, every single morning," Segovia said.
The students began the year in a new building, formerly home to another school but vacant for around a year. The new-to-them building was christened with a new name Thursday in honor of Ruben Trejo, an artist and longtime EWU professor who created the Chicano studies program.
"Just makes me thrilled to have my dad's name on a dual-language academy," said Trejo's son, Jose. "I just hope it's the start of something grander in Spokane schools."
Students at the academy are part of a first-of-its-kind in Spokane Public Schools: spending half the day learning en inglés, the other en español.
The K-7 elementary of just under 300 students was, eight years ago, just one class of kindergarteners housed at the Libby Center.
"We are seventh graders," sang out one student, as the class played a math game on tablets.
These are those kindergarteners today: now seventh graders looking at only two more years before transitioning to public high school. Stacy Valentin-Winkle's daughter Emery was one of the first students when the program was called Spokane Public Language Immersion.
"I grew up in a time when dual language wasn't important," said Valentin-Winkle. "My mom didn't speak to us at home in Tagalog. As a person of color I never had a teacher that reflected my identity."
She beams when thinking about all her daughters, both students at Ruben Trejo, are learning. Not just becoming well-versed in words, but immersed in compassionate action, empathy, and belonging.
Valentin-Winkle says she's even noticed her girls view world events and news in a different light thanks to being part of a diverse student body.
She jokes she hopes the girls plot against their parents in Spanish; her and her husband don't speak the language as well as their daughters. She says she's currently using an app to catch up to their fluency. The girls are outpacing her though, now taking up French and even asking grandma to teach them Tagalog, the language of Valentin-Winkle's Filipino heritage.
"We've spent too many years in this country creating deficit in mindsets around language," said Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal. "If you're a Spanish speaker, raise your hand and shout proudly to the world."
"It makes me so joyful and really teary when I think about what my kids will have, opportunities I didn't have," Valentin-Winkle said.
There are still some classes held in portable units and sections of the playground blocked off with fencing as the school grows into its new home. Though there's no shortage of joy for what this place could become.
"Still grass to be grown, still a lot of work to make it our own building," Valentin-Winkle said. "But we're well on our way."