District’s HOPE Summit Empowers Students With Pride, Purpose, and Pathways to Success

The summit targets emergent bilingual eighth-graders to find inspiration and opportunity.

Dr. José Luis Zelaya speaks to students at the AISD 2024 HOPE Summit.

Aldine ISD recently hosted its third annual HOPE (High School Opportunities Provide Empowerment) Summit at the M.O. Campbell Educational Center, bringing together nearly 1,200 eighth-graders for a day dedicated to inspiration, pride, and opportunity. Organized by the district’s Multilingual Department, the event welcomed all eighth-grade emergent bilingual students. Eva Carrillo-Iñiguez, Director of Multilingual Special Programs, opened the summit with a warm welcome, encouraging the students to embrace and take pride in their bilingual, bicultural, and bi-literate identities. “Your language and heritage are powerful assets,” she said. “They open doors and create a world of possibilities.”

Dr. José Luis Zelaya completed his Ph.D. in Urban Education at Texas A&M University. He is also a first-generation college student who, in 2006, became the first in his family to graduate from high school. Zelaya will share his story of perseverance. He describes experiences that shaped his upbringing, mentality, and character. From homelessness in one of the most dangerous cities in the world to migrating to the United States as an unaccompanied minor, he speaks of higher education as hope for our families and our communities. Zelaya described his experiences overcoming obstacles in a new country and the pivotal moment when a middle school teacher helped him see his bilingualism as a strength.

Zelaya credits his academic achievements to his family’s great sacrifices, numerous support systems, mentors, and a strong personal desire to succeed. Today, Zelaya aspires to open his heart, mind, and soul to have an interactive conversation about the transformational power of higher education, life success, and creating a generational legacy.

“High school is a catapult to where you want to go in life,” Zelaya told the students. He encouraged them to think about their futures and asked them to envision themselves as college students, skilled tradespeople, business owners, or military members. The students responded with their dreams, many mentioning their families as their greatest source of motivation and hope, highlighting their strong support system. Before closing his talk, Zelaya shared a QR where students could access financial aid resources.

As the event concluded, Dr. Zelaya gave the students a powerful message: “Be proud of where you come from and seize every opportunity. You are the future, and your bilingualism is your superpower.”

Throughout the day, students rotated through breakout sessions that offered insights into a wide range of programs, including CTE and Choice Schools, where they learned about career paths options Aldine ISD offers, athletics, where they discovered the benefits of sports in education, performing and visual arts, where students explored their creative interests, and graduation requirements, where they gained a clear understanding of what it takes to graduate high school. The Aldine ISD Police Department was also present to talk about careers in law enforcement. Each session allowed students to learn about the possibilities that await them in high school and beyond.

The district thanks author and illustrator Marcelo Verdad for making the trip to speak with students about how he used his bilingualism and biculturalism in his work. The Los Angeles-based creative is a Mexican multi-creative author working on picture books. He graduated from the Art Center College of Design and likes to tell stories from unconventional perspectives. In college, he fell in love with kids’ books. Since then, he has seen them as an excellent opportunity to give tiny learners valuable tools and a solid foundation to navigate this world with kindness, openness, and compassion. Verdad is the creator of The Worst Teddy Ever—which he also wrote in Spanish as El peor Teddy del mundo, and received a Blue Ribbon from The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, was a 2022 Indigo Best Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the Barnes and Noble Book Awards.

“We hope students left the HOPE Summit feeling motivated and empowered with new knowledge and proud of their linguistic heritage. Their multilingual skills and multicultural understanding puts them in a position of increased choices and opportunities. By seeing their interest in the event and taking advantage of the opportunities we offer in Aldine ISD, I am encouraged and optimistic about the future of our emergent bilingual learners,” said Carrillo-Iñiguez. “This is how we are making an #AldineImpact.”