By: Ahmed Elkacimi
Ms. Valerie Rodriguez has been part of the MASH family since she was a kindergartner, having been a student at the Vincent E. Mauro School. Now, she is the Technology Coordinator at Mauro Sheridan. She absolutely loves technology. She loves to help fix Chromebooks and upgrade them. She started learning about technology at the age of 15. Ms.Valerie likes being the technology teacher in Mauro Sheriden because she can be close to her children, who attend our school. She works the same hours as her old job, but she puts in extra hours before and after school, and even volunteers to help people with computers on the weekends. She wipes the computers with disinfectant wipes, and wears masks at all times. If she can’t fix the problem right away, she will take the computer from the classroom and fix it in her own space. She loves helping teachers load the classroom wifi and that is because the wifi at Mauro Sheridan is a little slow (but it feels like it is unnoticeable). Ms.Valerie wanted to be a technology coordinator because when she had her old job she went downtown for tech help but everyone would say “go to your tech helper.” Now people from downtown come to her for help! “We are all in this together,” Ms. Valerie says. “It takes time to solve the tech problems like supporting the teaching within the class, students logging into their accounts, giving students a charger when they lose it, ordering new computers and getting them up and running.” It is a long process, so don’t rush it, she says. She upgrades teachers’ computers to make them nice and fast. The part of her job that she doesn’t like is she has no control over the speed of the wifi in our school. She loves it when she changes the passwords and sees the kids smile and laugh. She also likes her job because she gets to be around amazing co-workers. Sometime in 2006 she started working in an after school program as a technology helper and she graduated high school that year. In 2015, she became the family educator at Mauro Sheridan. One of her biggest role models was tech teacher Jim Linehan, who passed away in 2015. Ms. Valerie applied for the position of tech coordinator because she has a passion for it. “I wouldn’t trade this job for the world,” she said. She has three kids, ages 10, 8 and 20 months. When she was about 15, she was offered a job for The Color of Words, a multimedia production company, where she did computer editing, and teaching other students. That’s how she got her start in tech. She loves the job so much, she would not leave even if there was another job that would give her a bigger amount of money. She says that Mauro Sheridan is her family. “You guys are my family unless they kick me out, for now you are stuck with me!” she said. Ms. Valerie has a degree in general studies from Gateway Community College. She believes that on-the-job experience is more important and useful than a degree. In her new position, she got a really big raise. “Technology has room for growth, if you are interested go for it,” Ms. Valerie says. |