Jaci Grado has wanted to be an educator since she was in kindergarten. Her love of teaching solidified in high school when she worked at an after-school program in her hometown of Schuyler, Nebraska.
The biggest employer in Schuyler is the Cargill beef processing plant, which relies on immigrant labor. More than 70 percent of the town’s 6,500 residents are Latino, including Grado, whose parents immigrated from Mexico. The second-biggest employer is the school system, which struggles to hire and keep teachers, much like rural communities nationwide.
Jaci Grado grew up in a small town in Nebraska and wants to return to teach there. Grado is wrapping up her sophomore year in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s teacher-training program. The first person in her family to go to college, she has been able to attend thanks to a scholarship program co-directed by UNL and Kansas State University to support aspiring teachers from rural places like Schuyler who could fill vacancies in their hometown schools. It’s a program the Nebraska Examiner highlighted in February.
Read more at Nebraska Examiner.
