Angie Cabrera: 'We're building a safe environment'

Angie Cabrera

Behavior Technician (LEAP Program-Special Education)

Crumpton Elementary School

JC Crumpton Elementary School Behavior Technician Angie Cabrera immigrated from Mexico nearly 25 years ago.

 

“It was hard because you don’t know the language. You don’t know the culture,” she says.

Little did she know at that time that she would find herself working in the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District. She was a cashier/clerk at a retail convenience store and it was immediately following a robbery that she started looking for a better job.

 

“This (MPUSD) was my better job,” she states. She has been working at Crumpton Elementary in the same classroom with Mrs. Melanie Tanseco for 10 years in her special education classroom serving students kindergarten through second grade.

It was a flyer her daughter brought home from school advertising a job in the cafeteria and she thought she could do that job. The position required a GED and even though she did not have a command of the English language, she took the initiative and enrolled in the Monterey Adult School in 2008. Fast forward a year later when she found herself in the parking lot of MPUSD’s District Office, nervous to go in and apply for a job. She even brought the flyer from a year prior, but quickly learned there was a better job in her future.

MPUSD's Human Resources department asked her if she had kids and when she said yes, she was told “You’re perfect for this job.”

 

 

She completed an application and enrolled at Hartnell College to complete some units before serving as an aide in the classroom. Along the way, she received so much encouragement from colleagues and supervisors.

 

“If you’re here, it’s for a reason … you got this,” said a close colleague.

Angie’s own experience helps her serve students. She recalls her very first student who had seizures. From the first moment she hugged him to the moment he had a seizure, Angelica says she felt so much compassion and put herself in “those little shoes.” She credits her job for bringing out her empathy.

 

“When I was working with the kids it was like it was meant to be for me,” she says. “I just love working here. We’re building a safe environment. We welcome people and always try to be empathetic with everyone.”

She loves Crumpton Elementary School. She says “I think we have the best thing - the environment, the principal, the staff. There have been a lot of changes, but we are always building.”

 

Angie has three children ages 9, 22, and 27.