Felipe Oviedo Ramirez: 'You never know...one of our students could be the next superintendent'
Felipe Oviedo Ramirez
Craft Worker - Mechanical
Maintenance & Operations
Felipe Oviedo Ramirez, a crafts worker in the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District’s Maintenance & Operations mechanical department, is perhaps the only person in the district to say they began their career with the district at age 14. He immigrated when he was just 11 years old from Michoacan, Mexico and attended Los Arboles Middle School and Seaside High School.
“A lot of people don’t know (this), I can basically say I started working for MPUSD since I was 14 years old,” beams Felipe. “Everything started when I was 14 and I (made) the right decision working for the Youth Program back in the day. It opened the doors for me.”
More than 20 years ago, MPUSD’s Youth Program allowed Felipe to work alongside the district’s custodians. He received training and learned about the background of the job, and when he graduated Seaside High in 2001 he became a full-time custodian at age 18. Felipe had the opportunity to work at three other schools - Seaside Middle School as head custodian, Fitch Middle School (now Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. School of the Arts) and Walter Colton Middle School before he became a painter in Maintenance & Operations.
Felipe is in his 21st year at MPUSD and currently does everything from fix potholes and sinkholes, build fences, pour concrete, and design and weld gates in the Maintenance & Operations shop before installing them at school sites.
He enjoys his coworkers and says, “It’s a great crew to work with. We are laughing and having fun, but at the same time getting our job done. It makes our job easier and the day goes by faster. You go home knowing you did what you were supposed to do but had fun at work.”
His office is districtwide and enjoys traveling across school sites as he often gets to see students from his former schools.
“I’ve been around students so long and I see them as adults now dropping their kids off to school. It’s a good feeling,” he says. “A lot say thank you for what you do for our schools and it recharges my batteries.”
“It makes me feel good knowing that the schools are moving forward and the little bit that we do helps make the campus safe for the students, the staff and ourselves,” he says.
Inspired by his father Felipe says, “My dad was a hard working man and he’s always taught me that you always have to work for what you want.”
Today, Felipe inspires students he talks with on campuses.
“First of all, stay in school. If you have the right education you are going to have a great job. Nothing wrong with what we do, but if you can prepare yourself, go to college and get a better job than this then I would prefer that our students get a good education then they end up getting good careers. You never know...one of our students could be the next superintendent,” he said.
Felipe is married and has three children ages 21, 16, and 13.