A special screening of a documentary from Twin Cities PBS on Latine-led educational reform in Minnesota will be shown at the University of Wisconsin-Madison next week.
PBS Wisconsin will host a showing of Twin Cities PBS’ “Profe” on Sept. 16. The documentary follows the stories of three Latina educators who worked to empower Latine students. Three local Latino educators will also be given an educational leadership award presented by Latinos Organizing for Understanding and Development (LOUD).
The documentary follows Ramona A. de Rosales, Norma C. Garcés and Katie Groh de Aviña — three educators in Minnesota who are invested in community-based education. It follows the three over a year as they created charter schools and dealt with the challenges around the educational revolution to address Minnesota’s opportunity gap.
Minnesota’s opportunity gap mirrors issues with Wisconsin’s own issues in schools. Minnesota, much like Wisconsin, struggles with literacy rates and lower than average test scores for children of color, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis’ executive brief on education achievement gaps.
Oscar Mireles, executive director of Omega School and a board member of PBS Wisconsin, wanted to bring the documentary to Wisconsin.
“We can learn lessons from each other,” Mireles said. “Minnesota and Wisconsin used to be almost twin states, in terms of being on the progressive ends of things. Minnesota is now light years ahead.”
The subjects of the documentary also play close to Mireles’ heart. He initially received a message from a friend in St. Paul about the documentary. He skimmed past it but realized that it was their friend that was in the documentary. He drove up to St. Paul for the initial screening where he decided that he wanted educators in Wisconsin to experience the documentary like he did.
Mireles wanted to center the screening on Wisconsin Latino educators.
The screening will also award three educators — Dr. Armando Ibarra, a UW-Madison professor at the School of Workers who holds an appointment with Chicano and Latino studies at the university; Bryan Grau, a multilingual teacher in Sun Prairie Area School District; and Silvia Gomez de Soriano, a bilingual resource specialist at Madison Metro School District — for their efforts in educational leadership.
The documentary is available to view on PBS Wisconsin and Twin Cities PBS for free.
The screening for “Profe” will be on Monday, Sept. 16 at Studio A in Vilas Hall, 821 University Ave., from 6:30-8:30 p.m. It is free to attend. Registration is required via emailing Mireles at [email protected]
