Dave Miller found himself struggling with a problem all too familiar to nonprofit leaders: short staffing. His outdoor education organization needed staff to provide essential childcare through after school programs, so he had to get creative.
Miller decided it was time to pull the trigger on an idea he had been contemplating for a while, one that would meet his staffing needs at Mountain Top Explorium and bolster career education opportunities for local high schoolers. The idea ended up bringing him employees with a skill set that strengthened what the nonprofit had to offer local families.
He sent a flyer to Summit High School early childhood education teacher Anna Howden advertising a paid internship that would help him staff the after school program. Howden took her fall semester early childhood education class to Mountain Top Explorium for a visit, where the opportunity piqued the interest of students Sheccid Ramirez and Josceline Ortega Orozco.
Both interviewed and got positions helping out with after school programs for elementary schools in Breckenridge, but the partnership didn't stop there. After interning from January to May, Miller offered the pair the opportunity to work summer programming as well.
For Ramirez and Ortega, they said this is the perfect prelude to starting education tracks at Colorado-based colleges in the fall. For Miller, he said what these two brought to the table was different from most other employees he's had.
Both Ramirez and Ortega have roots in Spanish-speaking cultures and are bilingual. When it came to their time working the after school program for Upper Blue Elementary students, around 50% of which Miller said are primary Spanish speakers, it made a world's difference.
"I know their heart language. I understand who they are and where they come from and their background. Unfortunately, not a lot of people can do that, but it's awesome that I can," Ortega said.
Ramirez said it fills her heart whenever a parent of an Upper Blue Elementary student recognizes her and stops to thank her. She said being afforded the opportunity to learn about education in both traditional learning environments, like classrooms, and in adjacent ones, like Mountain Top Explorium, reaffirmed her long-term goals to follow a career in education. She set these goals as a child growing up in Peru, witnessing her home country lack adequate special education resources for her younger brother with autism.
What she learned in Howden's classroom she got to see in practice in elementary schools across Summit County and in Mountain Top Explorium thanks to her teacher's multifaceted approach. Howden said she seeks to give her students a peek into numerous aspects of childhood development to show how broad the field is and what can be done in it.
Her "try a little bit of everything" persona helped Ortega decide to major in education next year at the University of Colorado Boulder. Ortega previously had herself set on a track to be a nurse, stacking her school schedule with classes to support that. During her senior year she had a hole in her schedule she wanted to fill, and the only class open in that time slot was Howden's early childhood education offering that came with the opportunity to earn college credits.
She said she was never fully convinced regarding the nursing career she planned to study for in college, but after learning under Howden, she was set on studying education.
"I was joking around and asked, "What if I become a teacher?" And (Howden) just said "yeah," ... You totally should become a teacher,"" Ortega said.
Howden said she could tell early on in her class that both Ramirez and Ortega were "natural" educators.
A tenet of her class is the understanding that education is meant to give students the tools to become their best selves. She said what makes Ramirez and Ortega natural educators is that they are living examples of people being their best selves.
Another key takeaway from her classes that the two students got to experience first hand was that teamwork is necessary in early childhood education.
"I think because you are working with children who sometimes don't have verbal skills yet, or emotional regulation skills yet, you're working as a team, not only with other adults in the building, but with parents," she said.
She said she recommends the internship Miller created to any students interested in early childhood education.
Miller said he's excited to continuing to provide the opportunity in future years to expose young adults to an early childhood learning environment while paying decent wages.
For more information about Mountain Top Explorium, visit MountainTopBreck.org/about-us.
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