Mrs. Whitemarsh has helped many students since she started her career as a teacher.
She went to Pasco Senior high as a student. She was outstanding in everything she did and involved in every activity and sport she could. Whitemarsh played soccer, basketball, and tennis. She was also part of the National Honor Society since she had exceptionally good grades, especially in math. In addition to that she did community service and had a job where she worked 30 hours a week.
However, being a first Generation and Latina made it even harder for her to become something more than what people expected from her being Mexican. When you are Mexican or Latino specially if you are a woman, many people have low expectations for you, even your own people. She knew she had to become more and make herself and family proud, but she did not even know where to start, she did not have a guide or someone to make her path easier. Despite that she never gave up. She had a vision, she wanted to provide more opportunities to students like her, “I was 17 years old when I started to recognize that there were not enough opportunities for bilingual students,” said Mrs. Whitemarsh.
Her years of hard work during high school paid off by being accepted into UW. (University of Washington) where she studied mathematics. She realized that she wanted to become a teacher, this was a big decision for her because at first her family did not support her, she said “when I told my parents that wanted to become a teacher my dad did not speak to me for two weeks.” They wanted more for her; they thought that being a teacher was not enough for her capacity, but she said “But what else? What could be more beautiful than being a teacher? Without teachers there would not be any doctors nor lawyers or any other career without teachers, what could be more beautiful than being a teacher”.
She worked at CBC where she met Mr. Garcia who is also a math teacher at Pasco High. She met him as her student during his precalculus class, he took a test and got an A. “when I was done, she pulled me to the side and asked me what I wanted to do, and I told her well, I want to be a math teacher” Mr. Garcia said. Mrs. Whitemarsh talked to him about a program “MESA” (Mathematics Engineer Science Achievement) in which she was the director, eventually he joined the program. She helped him plan his schedule, picked classes and helped him transfer to WSU (Washington State University) and kept helping him while he was a WSU student, and she also hired him as a tutor for MESA. After that they crossed paths again at Pasco high when she decided to be a formal teacher “I consider her my friend, my mentor, and now my colleague, we try to improve, and help kids out the best of their abilities” were the exact words of Mr. Garcia.
Mr. Valencia, English teacher at Pasco high school who also happens to be Mrs. Whitemarsh brother-in-law had said “I’ve always thought that she is an honorable person, dedicated to her profession, who is always respectful, and when she decides to participate in something, a project or activity, she dedicates 100% her energy and time, and that is something that stands out from her, she cares about all of her students specially bilingual students, she fights to be able to provide her students with the resources they need, I also know through students we have in common about the advance math program for bilingual students that she started in which you can earn college credit during high school, she is a great person, very professional, and passionate in what she does”.
Mrs. Whitemarsh has been teaching over the last 14 years and has helped many bilingual students, motivating them to reach their full potential.
