T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY From left to right, Marshalltown High School (MHS) and Marshalltown Education Partnership (MEP) alums Bat-Seba Ocampo, a preschool teacher at Woodbury Elementary, Kimberly Becerra, a school resource specialist at Hoglan Elementary who formerly served as a bilingual assistant and secretary at MHS, and Sugey Alvarez, a school resource specialist at Rogers Elementary, are now employees of the Marshalltown Community School District (MCSD).

(Editor’s note: This is the second in an occasional series of stories commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Marshalltown Education Partnership, a program led by local businesses and nonprofit organizations to provide scholarships to first generation college students from MHS who attend MCC.)

Marshalltown High School (MHS) alums Kimberly Becerra, Sugey Alvarez and Bat-Seba Ocampo have each taken their own paths back to working for the school district where they once attended classes, but they can agree on one thing — the Marshalltown Education Partnership (MEP), a scholarship program for first generation college students, played a key role in getting them to where they are today.

Becerra, a Class of 2011 graduate, is a school resource specialist at Hoglan Elementary who formerly served as a bilingual assistant and secretary at MHS, while Alvarez, who graduated with the Class of 2015, holds the same title at Rogers. Ocampo, also a member of the Class of 2011, is a preschool teacher at Woodbury Elementary.

Like many others who leave Marshalltown and eventually return, Becerra, who went to Iowa State University but still gained college credits from MCC while she was in high school, didn’t originally foresee such a path in her future.

“Once I graduated from Iowa State, I went to the high school, and I never thought I would come back here,” she said.

She credited the MEP coordinator at the time (the position is now held by Karina Hernandez) for holding her accountable, encouraging her to apply for scholarships and completing all of the necessary paperwork to obtain financial assistance.

“She was really good about (it). She was a go-to person for me, and I felt comfortable with her because I was very shy and quiet at the high school. I didn’t really feel comfortable going to anyone else. In a small setting of five other kids, it was easier to ask those harder questions or just having someone there for us to guide us on going to college because I was a first generation,” Becerra said. “(So it was great) having someone that had that knowledge, even though we weren’t going to MCC, it was like ‘Hey, you don’t need to just go to MCC. You can go to other places, and this is what you can do.'”

Conversely, Alvarez and Ocampo weren’t sure what they wanted to do at all and originally headed to MCC before eventually gravitating toward education.

“For me, I was lost, honestly. I didn’t really know how to start it or what to do or what I could even do. Even though we’re all first generations, even then I feel like my resources were very limited. I didn’t really know what to do with my life in general,” Ocampo said. “So just having somebody who was there for me, she was pushing me more. I didn’t go to her. She came to me, and that helped me. Even though I was more of an extrovert, I was more of an introvert when it came to asking for help. So just having somebody who was like ‘Hey, I know you need me to tell you what to do, so you’re gonna fill this form out. And you’re gonna try it, and you’re gonna like it. And you’re gonna do something with your life. And that just kind of helped me, just having someone to guide me when you don’t have anybody who has tried something out of your comfort zone.”

After two years at MCC, Alvarez transferred to the University of Northern Iowa (UNI), while Ocampo took a four or five year break, taking some time to coordinate the Fit Kids program at Woodbury, before finishing her education through online classes with Buena Vista University (BVU), which is based in Storm Lake but has a partnership with MCC. She recalled the difficulty of devising a five-year plan when she was mapping out her future, but she’s thankful to have finally found the right path.

“I was always just told (to) go to school, get good grades. If you get good grades, the path will kind of come to you, not you to the path. And so I feel like that mentality keeps you stuck because then you don’t look for what you need,” Ocampo said. “You can go look for stuff, and it’s OK to turn in FAFSA. Even asking for FAFSA for me, it was difficult for me to fill it out (because) it was like, I need something from someone else. Even if you’re gonna pay it back, it just felt off for me. I feel like the MEP representative was good at coaching me through it.”

All three of the MEP alums described some of the unique challenges they faced as first-generation college students — Becerra, at least, had an older sister who was already furthering her education.

“It’s such a long process. It’s not just applying for colleges. It’s like ‘Oh, have you turned in your transcript? Do you need any references? What scholarships do you qualify (for)? Where can you get your references?’ It’s all these small details that we are not aware of that she helped us, or at least me, be like ‘Have you turned this in? Have you done this?’ The importance of timelines and the FAFSA, that complicated process of the whole FAFSA thing, is a new thing for families that don’t go to college regularly,” she said.

Alvarez reiterated the importance of the help she received during the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) process and the guidance on how to pay for college. Now that they’re all back working in the district, Alvarez, Becerra and Ocampo advocate for the MEP whenever they can and let students who now find themselves in the same shoes they were in a decade or more ago know what a positive impact it can have on their futures.

“I think for a lot of high schoolers, you’re so young, and that’s such a big question of ‘What do you wanna do when you grow up?’ And even asking grown ups ‘What do you wanna do?’ It’s such a big question for these kids that it’s hard for them,” Becerra said. “So having that guidance is so important.”

Ocampo encourages students to get involved in the program and stay in school even if they don’t end up at MCC — which even Becerra, who went straight to ISU, says she would do today as a way to save money while figuring out a career path.

“There’s nothing wrong with staying at MCC and then moving, and I feel like a lot of kids are pressured to go to a university instead of just a (community) college like MCC,” Becerra said. “If I could go back, I would’ve started at MCC because it’s such a big transition, and dropout rates are so high for a lot of kids because it’s such a big transition from high school to college that MCC can be a little bit smaller classes (and) easier to communicate with professors.”

Additionally, Alvarez has always been happy to attend MEP alumni events and speak about her experiences, including filming a promotional video, and Ocampo summed up her feelings in just a few short words.

“MEP is great,” she said.

“10/10,” Becerra added.

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Contact Robert Maharry

at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.