City Park School students dare to dream during Women’s History Month

Published 5:00 pm Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Suhei Rodriguez wants to be a police officer when she grows up, as she now knows “not just boys can do it,” said the City Park School first-grader.

Her classmate, Nely Ramirez-Vasquez, also wants to be in law enforcement, because “it’s good to make other people safe.”

Throughout March, Women’s History Month, Rigo Gonzalez has been reading books about famous women with his first-grade English Language Learner (ELL) students, and through that endeavor “they’re growing bigger ideas about careers,” he said. “They want to be scientists, artists and pilots.”

Marie Curie, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only woman to win one twice, is a favorite of Ramirez-Vasquez, because “she (did) science and I do science,” she said. “I like exploring new animals and other stuff.”

Aviator Amelia Earhart captured the imagination of Rodriguez, she said. “She flew (thousands of) feet in the air, and I want to fly, too.”

Students “see men, (from) George Washington to Martin Luther King Jr., in history all the time, but what they don’t see as often is the other side, the women who have made a great impact on history,” so Gonzalez has spotlighted impactful females from around the globe representing numerous races this month, he said. His students, in turn, “have surprised me with how much they’ve gone above and beyond.”

“They’ve asked so many questions and done a lot of writing,” he said. “They’re so excited and involved.”

Gonzalez constructed an exhibit in the school’s main hallway featuring notable women and their achievements this month, as well as a mirror in which students are meant to reflect their own ambitions.

“The kids love this,” he said. “It’s fun to watch them stop by and look into the mirror.”

The school capped the month-long effort last Wednesday, as first-graders marched around the school’s perimeter while holding faces on sticks depicting numerous historically important women, waving them at motorists driving by on the roads.

During the parade, Rodriguez carried a stick with Alice Paul represented.

Paul, a leading suffragist, was once jailed for protesting in front of the White House, campaigning for women to gain voting rights, Ramirez-Vasquez said. “She didn’t give up,” even when jailed, and continued to be a women’s rights leader for more than 50 years.

Paul and others like her “helped make our country equal” for women, Rodriguez said. “They did a lot for the country.”

Gonzalez, many colleagues and several students sported gold, purple or white attire for the parade, the three colors of the U.S. suffrage movement, he said. Gold represents hope; white, purity; and purple, loyalty.

“These students will always remember what those colors mean and why we celebrate women in March,” said Kim Rhyne, City Park School’s principal. “I really love it, because we’re all about making our students feel empowered, making them feel their opportunities are endless.”

Rhyne still has interactions where “people look for the man,” surprised that the school’s principal is a female, and she wants a more equal world for the female students in her school, she said. “We don’t want them to ever feel the answer is ‘No,’ (but, rather) that they can do anything, and that we’ll help them succeed” in any endeavor.

The Women’s History Month push at City Park School didn’t impact only female students, however, Gonzalez said. “Everyone has been able to make important connections and put things together.”

Jamarion Ware, a first-grader, compiled a report about his favorite female, Dolly Parton, noting “she gives books to kids” through her literacy program, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, and “she can send her love in her books.”

Ware appreciates Parton’s song “Coat of Many Colors,” written about “the love her mom had for her to make a coat of many colors because (their family) didn’t have a lot of money,” he said. The song “makes me happy about her mom.”

As Parton demonstrates, “whatever you set your mind to, you can accomplish,” Ware concluded. “Just because you’re a woman, doesn’t mean you can’t do your dream.”