Listen to a conversation with Karen Ramirez Gutierrez, 4J principal at El Camino del Rio, a dual immersion school, about the benefits of learning different languages, and how to create a vibrant school culture and community. Karen shares about her own positive experience of coming to the Hult Center in high school and how excited she is for her students to come to the free student matinee to see 123 Andrés!
“My aim is for children to emerge more accepting, tolerant and curious when they meet others who are different from them. For Latino children, it’s especially important to have opportunities to see a positive role model who looks like them and to experience programming that celebrates their language and background.” -Andrés of 123 Andrés
Karen Ramirez Gutierrez is the principal of El Camino del Río/River Road, a dual immersion school in the Eugene 4J School District, where she has made her home since 2013. Her career at El Camino began as a first-grade teacher, followed by roles as Testing Coordinator and Bilingual Coach. Now in her sixth year as principal, Karen has worked alongside a dedicated school team to cultivate a thriving school community. Karen is deeply committed to promoting from within, embodying the belief that “mis mariposas tienen que volar” (“my butterflies need to fly”). Half of her current teaching staff began as Educational Assistants at El Camino, a reflection of her investment in growing talent and nurturing a culture of language and cultural diversity that mirrors the school’s demographics. Karen is a dedicated educational leader known for fostering a strong sense of trust and community among students, families and staff. Through her approachable leadership style, she has created an environment where students feel valued, supported, and empowered to thrive both academically and personally. Her commitment to building authentic relationships and promoting open communication has strengthened the bonds between students, staff, families and the broader school community, creating a positive and inclusive atmosphere for all.
Learn more:
123 Andrés https://123andres.com/
School Website https://riverroad.4j.lane.edu/
School Social Media https://facebook.com/elcaminodelrioelementary/
School Choice https://4j.lane.edu/schoolchoice
Cara: Hello listeners. My name is Cara Bryton and I’m the Education and Community Engagement Coordinator at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts. If you are a first-time listener, welcome to the Hult Center’s Community Conversation Podcast, where we go a little deeper by interviewing community members on subjects related to select performances. All past conversations could be found on the Hult Center’s blog page.
Today will be talking with Karen Ramirez Gutierrez, principal of El Camino del Río Elementary School. I met Karen last August at our educator welcome back event, which was the first time we invited specifically educators to the Hult Center to learn about different programs we offer with a focus on the Bridge to Broadway program and our free student matinee series.
Just a few days later, we received a request from El Camino for their entire school to come to 123 Andrés. We had never gotten that request and we were very excited to welcome the entire school and they’ll be with us on February 4th. We’re very excited.
So Karen, I just want to extend just a very warm welcome and thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to speak to us today. Could you start by just like sharing a little bit about yourself?
Karen: Yeah, hi everybody. My name is Karen Ramirez Gutierrez or in English it would be Karen Ramirez Gutierrez and I’m the principal at River Road Elementary School. I have been there as an administrator for six years and as an educator since 2013. So I feel like I have arrived at home. My school is about 430 plus students and growing.
And our school is the most diverse with culturally, linguistically diverse students. And I’m happy to say that our staff also matches the demographics of our school. So I’m super, super excited to be given this opportunity to be with you all. I just can’t be thankful enough to the Hult Center and for that email that showed up in my inbox for that invitation. It was so well done. And so I’m gonna make sure that all my other colleagues know about it so we can make sure that we have a filled house for next August when that happens. Let’s see, what else can I tell you? I love my school. I love the teachers and the staff and all of the wonderful students and families that come to my school. We really focus on making sure that our students become bilingual and biliterate by the time they leave our school. We have a mural that has these little caterpillars and it morphs into a beautiful butterfly. So we like to say that we are ugly little caterpillars and then we morph into beautiful bilingual butterflies by the time we leave El Camino. So that’s just a little bit about us. We’re right off of River Road, hence the
River Road, El Camino Del Rio, named to our school. And if you’re interested in being in our school, a school choice is happening right now. It happens every January. And if you’re a neighborhood kid in the River Road, Howard area, you automatically can just come and get an enrollment packet and you’re in. All of our schools in Fort J are great, so I can’t say anything bad about anybody else, but I just have a special place in my heart for this particular school.
Cara: Thank you for sharing all of that. Yeah, I haven’t been there, but I’ve walked by a bunch of times and I just, yeah, I could just really feel like a wonderful, creative energy coming off the school for sure. So you kind of answered my first question of like, what makes your school so special? And so I’ll just move on unless there’s anything else that you wanted to throw in there before I do.
Karen: Yeah, I say I have like the best staff. I would tell you that the people that work here like have a passion for kids and it shows in a whole bunch of different ways. We celebrate with kids when they’re having successes and we also really take the time when they’re having a hard time or they have a problem to not only just kind of be like, here’s your consequence, but really like, what is at the heart of whatever happened? We’re really good about telling kids like, stop, I don’t like that when something happens to them, if they feel like they can. If they don’t, then going straight to an adult and getting some help. So I feel like that really sets the tone for our school that we’re really here to have an open door policy to our students and our families about their experience. I definitely want to know the smallest of things that we can make sure we address quickly because we don’t want anything to get in the way of learning. Our biggest equity stance is that we want all kids to be at grade level by third grade. All of the studies show that if students can read, then that just opens up so many doors for them in their future and their educational experiences.
So that’s our biggest thing is can our kids read in one language or both with languages at grade level by third grade. So that’s our passion for everything we do just because like the beginning part is reading, learning to read, which segues into reading to learn. And so if you can read to learn, you’re, there’s so many doors that open for you.
So that’s the passion in the heart. One thing that I also put in my little bio is that I’m really about promoting within. So half of my EAs are now in the classroom as teachers. So I know that with my Grow My Own program, the attrition, the moving is gonna happen less and less, which is better for kids and staff as a whole because you have the same people that are going to stay here for a really long time because they have their roots embedded in Eugene. Where if I hire someone without that base, they can easily be moved somewhere else. But if their family is here, their kids are here, their relatives are here, they call Eugene their home, they’re more likely to stay here, which is what I want and that’s where I’ve seen the most success. My bang for my buck, buck, buck, bang for my buck is that the staff that is here plans to be here for their whole career. Nothing would bring me more joy either to just be here my whole career because I think what really makes and sets any school apart is when everybody wants to be there and stay there. So I can tell you we have a really healthy culture of collaboration and working together.
Cara: Oh, that’s so uplifting to hear. I’m a former educator and you know, it’s, I’ve had those places, but you know, it’s a really hard profession. And so I’m, yeah, just really happy to hear that. And it reminds me of my friend wrote like their holiday letter recently and sent it out. And I can’t remember who said it, but it’s like, how do you build community? Pick a place.You you pick a place, you choose it and you just like invest and you, you know, that’s the spot. And yeah, thank you for sharing all that. Such a special place indeed. And you kind of touched on this and yeah, just for our listeners, why do language immersion programs matter? Like why does like a program like you have at El Camino matter today, today and tomorrow? Yeah.
Karen: Always, right? Well, from a personal stance, I came to this country when I was six years old and I didn’t know a word in English. My only training that I got prior to school was that I wasn’t gonna be Garen anymore, that I was gonna be Karen. So when you heard Karen, that that was my cue, that that was me. And so I just remember growing up and being like, my world got turned upside down.
Like I was just so used to being super outgoing, super like loved school and then not knowing anything. So my first year I was in what we call the silent phase. And had I had a program like El Camino, I could have been fostering my Spanish skills, learning how to read and write in Spanish that would have helped me flourish in English and all of the bilingual programs, that’s what they do. Not only are you able to keep your home language, but you actually are outperforming English-only schools. And I just remember being like, I would want to be able to express myself better if I could use all of my language repertoire. And that was part of the reason I became an educator, because I wanted students to have access to a bilingual teacher, that I wanted students to learn from me, that I wanted to have them have maybe their first Mexican teacher be me. I was also hoping that I wouldn’t be the first and last. So I really wanted to make sure that I fostered a community sense, if that makes sense at all. Like, just because I come from Mexico doesn’t mean I’m any different than you are. I have cares, I have loves, and I’m gonna take care of you and you’re gonna learn with me and it’s gonna be the best year ever. So all through my educational experience, I just wanted someone to connect with so badly and my first educator who was bilingual was in college and that’s just way too late. So that was where was like, elementary is it’s gonna be at. Cause I also went to middle school and I was gonna be a middle school teacher and then I actually was with the middle school and I was like, okay, this mess is at school. I mean, I can hang. was there for my VP year learning the ropes and I was like, okay, okay, I can do this. I can be sarcastic and fun. I definitely think that elementary, there’s just so much joy and so that’s what I try to bring is so much joy. We celebrate everything. We have spirit weeks. We celebrate about different cultural events. We have dances, so their first dance doesn’t happen at middle school, it happens at elementary. So they don’t have those jitters when they go to middle school. We have board game nights and loteria nights, that’s just something to be celebrated that all of these cultural differences, like we’re not that different. Let’s just get together and play and have fun and dance and do all the things that bring us joy so we can see how much alike we are. And so that’s the difference between like English only schools and bilingual schools. I don’t care what language you’re learning. It really doesn’t matter. My hope would be whatever a community wants to learn that they get behind it, they find the teachers for it and they just plunge in. It’s not a short time thing. It has to be a long haul. El Camino was a grassroots movement that slowly started at Kinder and then first grade until we made it to our senior year and our first class graduated in 2021. So we’re relatively a newer program, but that doesn’t take away for the, it doesn’t take away the long lasting community and acknowledging how beautiful it is to come from different cultures and come together. And the whole point of like a dual immersion program is that
After your population speaks one language well, the other speaks the other one, and then they’re cross referencing cross culturally, linguistically helping each other when it’s not their set time, if that makes sense. So the English speakers are really good at English and therefore are helping the students that are learning English and vice versa. The Spanish speakers who are really, you know, it’s their native language, they’re helping the English learners. I mean, the Spanish learners learn Spanish. And that’s the beautiful part of any dual immersion program is that you’re removing all kinds of linguistic and diversity barriers and actually bringing a community together.
Cara: So awesome. Thank you. love, I’m blown away. I love it. It’s so great to hear about. Yeah, and I guess I’ll just wanna like circle back to 123 Andrés. I mean, this is like really kind of like there also. It sounds very aligned with El Camino’s, yeah, like mission and vision for their work. And I know it’s like a really, it’s gonna be a really fun and entertaining show but also like, could you share more about like the choice or the importance for you to bring the whole student body to this performance?
Karen: My gosh, yes. So I graduated from Oakridge High School back in the dark ages, 2002. And I remember that our school was really good about giving us different experiences. And for me coming from a foreign country, you could call it, just coming where like, we didn’t, I was from a small like ranching community, like a little village. And then I just never took any educational opportunities for granted. We would go back to Mexico and I’d be like, my gosh, I’m given so many opportunities that I’m not going to waste any of them. So I was like that kid that did everything. And that’s why I guess I never left school and I, you know, wanted to just remain and have this be my passion in life.
And so I remember that one, I can’t remember the show, but I remember the first time I went into the Hult Center and I had never seen such a more beautiful place. I just remember like going in and just taking it in as a, and I don’t know if that was my first experience, but I just remember being like, this is a beautiful space and looking intricately at the ceiling, at the walls and comparing it to, because I was a theater geek too, comparing it to my high school auditorium and then in the Hult Center. And I mean, our auditorium was pretty nice. It seemed at that time, and I think it’s still pretty nice, but I just was in awe. I was in awe and I was just like, I want to grant that same opportunity to my students. And I have, like I said, the most diverse and staff and students. So I want them to have that wow, and there’s nothing more magical than field trips and going with your friends and experiencing something for the first time or just being on the bus and getting to go to your new destination and then having it be absolutely just a fantastic show, which I know 123 Andrés a lot of my teachers use it because it’s one of the few things that is like in Spanish and it’s fun and it’s lively. And I just thought there’s just no better way to get them, my kinders to fifth graders to come in. And something really, really created that we did is they’re going with their buddy classrooms. So their buddy classrooms is each teacher has like the older students have a choice of being at certain grade levels. So my kinders are with third graders, first graders are with fourth, second graders are with fifth graders. And every Wednesday or other Wednesday, they get together and do activities. So there’s that cross grade collaboration. So that way, we did a field trip in the fall to the pumpkin patch. I’m like, we haven’t, and that was, I think our second, no, our first year doing that. So this is our first field trip. That’s buddies. And I just can’t wait. I just can’t wait to have our whole school packed in buses. It’s not.
Cara: Yes!
Karen: And having them have like this awesome experience. So we’re gearing up. We’re super excited. Before the podcast started, I was telling you that we got shirts from 123 Andrés because we just so believe in their message of bilingualism is a superpower and we believe that and live that every single day. again, I just love the Hult Center. I take my girls whenever there’s performances that are for them because I don’t want them to be strangers to the Hult Center. I want them to think of that as a second home. And I want that for my students too. And the Hult Center is so giving and so generous. They always think of kids and staff and they get so many tickets out to make sure that everyone has access. And that’s one of the most beautiful things about our community is those partnerships that really make it for anyone to be able to go.
Cara: Mm, beautiful. Thank you. Yeah, I had a lot of like, just things I wanted to respond to. But yeah, it’s when I’ve been able to like, I’ve been in this job for, you know, less than two years. But when we’ve done the student shows, I like I can’t help but like cry just like seeing these kids like for many of them. It’s like their first time coming to a place like this. And it’s just like, they’re so excited. And yeah, I’m really, really excited to have you all. And yeah, we’re kind of at a closing point. But is there any like last little thing you want to share out before we close?
Karen: I just want to say thank you. I want to thank anybody and everybody that helps contribute or donate. It does definitely go back to schools. I’m just so blessed that I’m able to do this during the day, that it’s just like a bonus. Kids come and they’re happy and joyful. And I know we hear a lot of bad things about education and the crisis, but there’s so many places that are doing such amazing work. And if you have questions or concerns or want to help, just go to a school, go to your neighborhood school, go to any school, you’re welcome to come and volunteer and just see the magic that happens every day. Like literally public education, it’s where it’s at. It is one of the cornerstones of our democracy and I truly believe that. So when in doubt, check out your…close to school and just go and make the world a better place by making sure kids are getting to read by third grade at grade level. That’s definitely the game changer. So I thank you. I thank your audience. I thank the Hult Center. And I just can’t, I can’t wait for the show and more shows to come because they definitely make a difference in your hearts, in your lives, and in your community.
Cara: Awesome. Wonderful. So on that note, there are still tickets available for our public show on Monday, February 3rd at 6 p.m. Look out for cultural passes from Springfield Library, Downtown Library, and Bethel Library while supplies last. And if you are an Oregon Trail cardholder, you qualify for the Arts for All program which offers $5 tickets to select shows at the Hult Center [while supplies last]. If you come early, join us for a special collaborative art project outside the Soreng Theater. Thank you again for listening and we’ll see you next time.
