T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY Class of 2021 Marshalltown High School graduate Uriel Campos-Padilla, left, is returning home to teach first grade at Rogers Elementary School this fall. He is pictured with his mother Isabel Campos-Padilla, right, an English Language Learners (ELL) teacher at MHS.

Uriel Campos-Padilla moved to Marshalltown from California in 2017 and graduated from MHS in 2021 before furthering his education at the University of Iowa. This fall, he’ll come full circle and start his professional career teaching first grade at Rogers Elementary while joining his mother, High School English Language Learners (ELL) teacher Isabel Campos-Padilla, on the Marshalltown Community School District (MCSD) staff.

Uriel credited his mother with inspiring him to pursue teaching, calling her a strong supporter and advocate, and Isabel reciprocated the praise.

“He will empathize with the students because this is his community. He’s coming back to the community to make a difference, to serve the community, to help as a teacher, and he speaks the language of most of the families,” she said.

Recently, Uriel, who earned a BA in elementary education with an ELL endorsement, was featured as the commencement speaker at the University of Iowa College of Education graduation ceremony, and while he was surprised to learn that faculty had chosen him for the honor, he was excited about the opportunity nonetheless. During the speech, he challenged those in the audience to say the name of a teacher who made a positive impact on their lives out loud and hoped he and his fellow graduates would someday join that elite group.

“We are very privileged to have this position, and as educators, we hold the power to influence future members of our society to go on and do great things,” he said. “It’s not a secret that this country is unfortunately strongly divided on many issues boiling down to harmful belief systems that directly affect our students and communities. During these times, we must remember that the roles we are taking on require hard work to actively unify and undo the damage to the best of our abilities. With one kind action or one piece of encouragement, we really do have the ability to change the trajectory of a young person’s life.”

Before he graduated, Uriel completed his student teaching requirements at both Rogers, where he will now work, and Woodbury Elementary School within the MCSD. During his commencement speech, he recounted a humorous antidote about a student who consistently challenged him but ended up crying the hardest when their time together came to an end.

“Uriel made a tremendous impact on our students during his time as a fourth-grade student teacher at Rogers. His passion for students, commitment to relationships, and belief in making a difference every single day truly reflect the values we strive to embody at Rogers Elementary,” Rogers Principal Brooke Grossheim said. “Uriel’s commencement speech powerfully captured the importance of purpose, perseverance, and making a positive difference in others’ lives. We are honored to welcome him back to Rogers next year as a first-grade teacher and are confident he will continue to positively influence the lives of our students and families in profound ways.”

His mother can’t wait to see what he does next now that he’s back home.

“To me, this community represents the world. It has socioeconomic and ethnic diversity, and I believe that our students here in the school district have that privilege of being in an environment that is representative of the world. So it’s very empowering,” she said. “They’re better equipped to work with a diverse team of people around the world because that’s pretty much how the global economy works. And I think our students have that.”

And for Uriel, who is working at Hy-Vee in Marshalltown this summer, teaching first grade offers him a chance to guide students at their earliest stages of development and serve as a role model for them.

“I’m probably one of their first teachers in their whole K-12 schooling and hopefully beyond. I guess my goal is to be someone that hopefully my students can look back at and say ‘I learned a lot from him. He really helped me. He saw me for not only the student that I am, but the person that I am,'” he said. “And (I want) to be someone that makes a positive impact on my students’ lives.”

He has quite a role model to look up to in his own mother, who works with students new to the country and eager to learn English as a pathway to a successful life in the U.S. and hopes to see her son model empathy, kindness, curiosity for learning, perseverance, fairness, and humility in his new career.