Rhea Layosa: 'It takes extreme patience and determination to do what's right by students'

Rhea Layosa

Special Day Class Teacher

Los Arboles Middle School

Five years ago, Rhea Layosa was recruited from the Philippines as part of the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District's cultural exchange teacher program. “I taught for 10 years in the Philippines … I was blessed and fortunate enough (and selected) to come here,” says Rhea.

Rhea is a Special Day Class teacher at Los Arboles Middle School teaching essential science and essential social science (history). “I’ve always been a resource specialist program teacher,” she says. 

At the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District she teaches students in the Special Day Class, and also has students who are pushed into general education classes. Her day is very dynamic. “There is no time to breathe, but I love it.”

A Special Day Class typically has 12 to 15 students and offers the same curriculum that general education students receive, but with accommodations for students in a way that they can understand. Rhea’s goal is to ultimately move her students from a Special Day Class to a general education class or at least one general education class before they transition to high school.

She acknowledges that an important part of what she does is to build relationships with students’ parents to provide consistency both at school and at home. “I need parents’ help. We need to be consistent together.”

 

Rhea did not begin her career as a teacher, but one day she had the opportunity to encounter students with special needs and realized that teaching them was what she wanted to do. “I got my credentials and started teaching. I love it because I like making a difference in their (students) lives. If I am able to teach them how to read then it is really rewarding,” she says.

Teaching students with exceptional needs can sometimes be challenging. It takes, “extreme patience and determination to do what’s right by students,” says Rhea. “I think middle school is one of the hardest to teach. Our students are academically challenged and they also have behaviors that go with that. Hormones are also raging. It takes a lot of patience … every morning I pray that I will be able to exercise that patience.”

Rhea enjoys being at MPUSD and she loves Los Arboles Middle. “I think MPUSD truly wants their students to learn. They constantly want to raise the educational standards that the students are learning while at the same time teaching the values and principals they need to be healthy and successful in the future,” she says.

Rhea earned her bachelor of arts in physical therapy. Outside of work she enjoys reading novels and spending time with her family.