When Olga Cobb became the principal of Highland Elementary School in Salem, she wanted parents to get more involved in reading.

It was 2006 and Cobb, the school’s first Latino principal, brought Spanish-speaking parents to school in the evenings to see how they could support their children’s education and reading at home. I planned to learn

Cobb realized that to get more families involved, he needed to provide transportation and dinner for parents who couldn’t drive. But she didn’t have the money to do it.

At that time, Annalivia Palazzo-Angulo got involved and successfully applied for a grant to pay for the additional costs.

The longtime director of the Salem-Kaiser Coalition for Equality spent decades in Salem empowering Latino parents behind the scenes to understand and participate in their children’s education. It also worked with local schools to better meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student body.

With the help of Palazzo-Angulo, Cobb started the program and students improved their reading skills.

Palazzo Angulo founded the Coalition with her husband Educardo Angulo in 1999 and retired in August after leading the coalition as Executive Director since 2013.

Although she is not a household name in Salem, her influence and work can be seen throughout the city. She supports committees that help prioritize multi-million dollar school spending, Salem-Kiser School District policies that limit the information schools share with immigration, and expanding local groups for child development and civics. Parents learned about participation.

Those who have worked with her know that Palazzo Angulo is a thoughtful yet staunch advocate and storyteller. She often answers her questions with a mix of her personal anecdotes and rapid-fire references to academic studies that support her claims.

“Annalivia is a warrior,” said Javier Quiroz, facilitator of the Coalition’s Forming Strong Families program and one of its early employees, in a speech at the August 30 retirement celebration. “She will always remain a warrior… someone who cares about what is happening to the entire Union and our Latino immigrant community and will do something about it,” Quiroz said.

Palazzo-Angulo spent more than half of her own brief speech calling Coalition employees to thank them for their work.

“I’m really proud of our team, and that’s the most important thing,” she said.

Cobb is one of dozens of Salem educators and parents who say Palazzo Anglo played a key role in mentoring them and showing them how to advocate for themselves and others. has become a leader.

“She helped me connect with other leaders in the Hispanic-Latinx community that I probably didn’t know before,” Cobb said of his early days as Salem principal. , serves as an assistant superintendent for a school district focused on primary education.

At Confederation, Palazzo Anglo creates a network of parents who understand that they can advocate for their families’ needs by participating in school board meetings and committees, even if they do not speak English and require an interpreter. nurtured.

“She empowered us and believed in us,” said Lucia Sanchez, Coalition early learning facilitator.

childhood away

Palazzo Angulo’s early days in Salem shaped her desire to advocate for those often left behind by government decisions.

She started attending Richmond Elementary School in 1963, and the students were almost uniformly white.

Palazzo Angulo, half Italian, had prominent dark hair and her classmates often thought she was Mexican.

“I always felt out of place,” she said.

She took great pride in her heritage and appreciated her dark skin, but at times wanted to have blonde hair and look like her classmates.

Palazzo Angulo was the child of a struggling single mother who worked as a teacher.

She remembered watching her classmates at school throw away foods she would have loved to eat: Twinkies and Bologna sandwiches.

“I was too embarrassed to take anything out of the trash can, but I remember staring at it,” she said.

She was smart and had good grades, but felt disconnected from school and other students.

“I didn’t belong,” she said.

However, she wanted to continue her education. In 1999, as a 39-year-old single mother, she enrolled at her community college in Chemeketa, after which she studied the history of civil rights and the role of language in education at Willamette University. It was her first exposure to any kind of racial diversity.

“I was immediately drawn to others who were marginalized and underserved,” she said.

She has a Master’s degree in Education with a focus on Teaching English as a Second Language to Latinos.

growing coalition

By the late 1990s, Salem and Oregon had a growing number of Latino students, and local advocates, including the Palazzo Anglo, were concerned about discipline and high dropout rates in schools, as well as low graduation rates. was

Palazzo Angulo and her husband formed the Coalition for Equality with others. Their goals included better understanding dropout rates, school performance, and disciplines categorized by race and ethnicity so that the extent of the problem could be documented.

They advocate for school district policies to support Latinx students and for parents to be more involved in their children’s education to address academic gaps and keep children from getting involved in gangs. We focused on both.

“It was all about saving young people,” said Palazzo Angulo.

Soon after, the federal government enacted the 2001 Ban on Abandoned Children Act. While most of the education community has focused on a significant expansion of standardized testing across the United States, the legislation also includes requirements for parental involvement and sharing of data on school performance. It was

Palazzo-Angulo saw an opportunity.

“We accepted the parental involvement requirement … we agreed to it and harassed the school district,” she said.

Palazzo Angulo temporarily left the federation due to family obligations, but returned in 2013 as its executive director.

At the time, the nonprofit had an annual budget of about $465,000 and eight full-time employees.

Sanchez said Palazzo Angulo will set out to grow the coalition to serve more parents, focus on staff training, provide child care to employees and help people who need care. said to provide flexibility when

“It’s a second home and they got to know each of us like the head of the family,” Sanchez said of Palazzo Angulo and her husband, Eduardo.

Under Palazzo-Angulo’s leadership, the Coalition has added an early education program to help parents understand how to support their child’s development.

“If parents are ready, they tell their kids what they know,” said early learning program coordinator Nancy Gamino.

The Coalition tracked the first group of parents who attended the Educate & Inspire workshop in 2013-2014, and over the next four years their students were more absent from school than other low-income Latino students. found that the rate of

parental advocacy

Most of Coalition’s employees are Latino parents who were hired after joining the program. Sanchez said Palazzo Angulo showed them that they could become teachers and train others.

For Palazzo-Angulo, the team is the most important achievement of the last decade.

“They are all immigrants. Each one has a trauma. They are all in the strawberry fields,” Palazzo Angulo said.

Salem Kaiser Superintendent Christy Perry said these parents are now influencing several aspects of how the district operates.

During school board meetings, where live Spanish translation is provided, Coalition parents often react in real time to improve the accuracy and clarity of the information being conveyed.

The Union also conducts summer training for Salem teachers, including a language and culture institute, teaching Spanish and working with Latino parents.

“They are a very small organization, but they are a powerful force,” Perry said.

A district policy exists for the Union that school officials do not allow federal immigration officers to access student records or remove students from campus without a warrant.

Perry said Palazzo Angulo called her shortly after the 2016 election and said the district needed a plan to know what employees should do if immigration officers showed up at the school. The two women are in regular contact and Palazzo-Angulo doesn’t hesitate to let Perry know if anything goes wrong for the family they work with. .

“She just keeps working on it. It’s part of her personality. I’m going to stick with something until I know you’re listening to me,” Perry said.

Palazzo-Angulo will remain as the Coalition’s part-time grant writer as Interim Executive Director Dunetchka Otero-Serrano will take over.

While hugging a longtime employee at a retirement celebration, Palazzo Angulo said her job of expanding funding for the federation was easy thanks to the dedication and hard work of the federation’s staff.

“I only write about what you guys do, so I make money,” she said.

Please contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.

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