Principal passes mother's words to encouragement to school children

Enedelia didn’t want to go to school. She didn’t speak English. She didn’t have any friends yet in the Oregon town where her parents had moved. She had never been to school before. “You can do it, Enedelia. You can do it,” her mom would tell her.

Her mom walked her to school and got her enrolled, but as soon as her mom left, she went out the side door and beat her mom home.

She had to go back, her mother insisted. And once again she assured her daughter, “You can do it, Enedelia. You can do it.”

Enedelia was just one of those migrant kids who showed up to school without much preparation for success. She didn’t know the language. Didn’t know the alphabet in any language. All statistics would have predicted her failure.

But every time she wanted to give up or faced an assignment she could not figure out, her unschooled parents could not help much with the assignment, but her mom would tell her, “You can do it, Enedelia. You can do it.”

In high school, one counselor laughed at her idea of going to college, even though Enedelia was getting good grades. “You are Mexican. You’re going to get pregnant, have lots of kids and be a mother.”

Consequently, Enedelia didn’t get much counseling on what she needed to do to go to college. After graduation, she just showed up to the first day of the fall semester at the nearby private college. Perhaps it was her pure innocence that enticed the school to let her try, but she was told she could only go as long as she could pay the tuition and get straight A’s.

She had to work full-time to pay the tuition, and she had to study late into the night to keep her grades up. But when she felt like quitting, her mom would assure her, “You can do it, Enedelia. You can do it.”

She did graduate with straight A’s and became a teacher. Over the years she continued on to a master’s degree and then a doctor of law degree.

Then she had an opportunity to be a principal of one of the poorest schools in Oregon . New challenges. New doubts. New fears.

But her mom’s words kept ringing in her ears … and she shared them with the children. Most of the children also spoke English as a second language, and their skin was at least as brown as Enedelia’s. They, too, arrived at school with fear in their eyes.

But Enedelia was like a mom to all 700 children. Every day she and her teachers talked to the children about their college plans. And every day they taught the children, “You can do it, too. You can do it.”

Somehow her children at school defied all the statistics. Despite all their challenges, Enedelia’s school became one of the highest-achieving schools in the state. And in the year 2000, Enedelia was honored the Oregon State ’s Principal of the Year.

But when the White House called, Enedelia Schofield thought it was a silly prank. Now as co-chair of President Bush’s Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, she has had the opportunity to share her encouragement to parents, educators and children across the land.

Speaking to a national conference of migrant educators and parents, she declared: “We’re not just going to move mountains, we’re going to move universes!”

Her mom has died, but Enedelia says her mom is still always with her ... in her mind and heart, repeating her words of encouragement: “You can do it, Enedelia. You can do it.”

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