Home of Today's Common Sense

(Published in the Brownsville Herald- Brownsville, Texas 1/5/2003)
In the excellent article in the Sunday, December 8, Brownsville Herald entitled “Immigrants still wanted in Hard Times” and while Mr. Navarrette focused on latin migration hit the nail on the head when he said “…what Americans should know by now, even if some are reluctant to admit it: Immigrants were an undeniable and indispensable factor in the nation’s economic growth over the past decade.”
This caused me to remember the community stir back a few months ago when the decision to recruit teachers from the Philippines was being discussed.

At that time there was concern that they would displace local teachers and that they would not communicate well because of their accents, ect.
I expressed concerns that the administration retained a recruiting company without seeking a bid or publicizing the process because my company has an interest in the recruiting of professionals from the Philippines. I also was concerned that the fees paid by the recruits were very high.
While I still feel that the process of recruiting should have been publicized and am unable to decide whether some of the recruiting costs should rightly have been borne by BISD as I understand they weren’t, the overall result was excellent.
The community received 20 plus excellent teachers, who communicate well, understand bi-lingual/bi-cultural needs better than most. Filipinos have been living it at least since the Spanish American War when the Philippines became a possession of the United States.
I have had the opportunity to meet many of these great people at parties held by a group of Philippine Teachers and the whole Valley Filipino Community. These communities went to great lengths to welcome their recently arrived countrymen and help them adapt to the new environment.
In many of the conversations I learned that most felt that, while the fees they paid the recruiter were quite high, they were well informed of the costs in advanced and accepted them in order to have the opportunity to try for the “American Dream.” In looking at all the services they received for their money, I must also give grudging respect to “Omni”, the recruiting company selected by BISD, for anticipating things such as the immediate need of transportation to the various schools and communities. They even provided transport for the new teachers during the first few weeks until paychecks were received and personal vehicles or alternate transport could be secured. It appears that the process was well planned and very well executed.
The Filipino teachers now have the opportunity they seek and the Valley has some wonderful new teachers: a biology teacher that was a physician in the Philippines, former college professors, engineers, etc and some just terrific enthusiastic teachers with many years of experience.