Brawley – First year teacher, Daniel Nunez, from Alternative Education’s Del Rio Academy in Brawley reflected on one of his most vivid memories as a new teacher. “It seems like almost every day of the school year there was something memorable” responded Nunez. “But I do remember a fondness for the graduation ceremony – one student in particular I had first met at Rite-Track (an evening program for at-risk youth) graduated and it was rewarding to see her accomplish an important goal like graduating from high school.”
For a variety of reasons our students need additional support – they get that here, and as a result - they make progress
As the sole fulltime teacher based at Del Rio Academy, Nunez is certainly faced with challenges. Teaching a wide variety of grades, the span is often between 7th to 12th grade, and providing direct teaching in all the core academic disciplines such as English language arts, math and social sciences can be demanding. “That part was hard, but the flip side is that as their teacher all day long, I can really develop a relationship with students and I can see where we are making a difference with students.”
Nunez is quick to acknowledge that while he is the only teacher on campus a lot of the time, there are a lot of other ICOE staff that make up the team at Del Rio. In fact, one of the staff (Mr. Flores) will get in a van and look for students if they don’t show up for school by a certain time. “For a variety of reasons our students need additional support – they get that here, and as a result - they make progress” summarized Nunez when discussing the role of Alternative Education.
An Army veteran with two tours of combat duty, Nunez majored in Criminal Justice and History at SDSU locally here in Imperial Valley. He is recently engaged and his fiancé is a counselor at IVC.