Angel Gutierrez, senior at Portland's Roosevelt High, wins full ride to the Ivy League

angel2.jan.3.2010.JPGView full sizeAngel Gutierrez (center) and two other Roosevelt High students met at the home of physics teacher Rafael Bobenrieth over holiday break for get extra instruction so they can qualify for Advanced Placement credit.

Nov. 15 was a momentous day for Angel Gutierrez, the sixth child of seven in a Spanish-speaking North Portland family.

A senior at

, Gutierrez had devoted himself to excelling in school, mastering college-level English, biology, chemistry and Spanish literature. His dream of becoming the first in his family to attend college hinged on winning a large scholarship, necessary for the son of a pillow factory worker to afford tuition.

He applied to some of the nation's most prestigious universities in the highly competitive fall early-admission period, and knew the 15th was the day he'd get his answer. Still, when classes let out for the day, he first turned his attention to the same thing he does every weekday from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m.: homework, in this case, in a quiet spot at school.

As he worked, the e-mail arrived. He read it and, still in shock, headed to share the news with the people he felt deserved credit. He slipped into the all-school faculty meeting, and one of his favorite teachers announced it to the room: Angel Gutierrez had won a full-ride scholarship worth more than $220,000 to attend the Ivy League's

.

He is the first Roosevelt student in nearly a decade to be accepted to one of the country's most selective colleges. And his selection is welcome vindication for Gutierrez and his teachers that top-tier academics can indeed be found in

, one of the poorest stretches, and the most heavily Latino section, of Portland Public Schools.

The scholarship also means that, despite his family's history of grinding poverty, any financial uncertainties about college are gone. Along with tuition, Brown will pay for Gutierrez's room, board, books and travel for four years.

"I started off high school thinking I would not be able to go to college," he said. "This is all due to my teachers. If not for them, I wouldn't even know what an Ivy League school was."

Gutierrez raced home to share the news with his ecstatic parents, Juan and Guadalupe, and the tumble of brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews who happened to be gathered for a meal. After accepting their cheers and hugs, the 17-year-old headed back to Roosevelt: He had homework to finish.

The story of how a Los Angeles-born, Portland-raised son in a Mexican-American family in which only one older sibling finished high school became one of just two Portland-area students accepted to Brown during early-decision season is deceptively simple, at least as Gutierrez tells it.

He counted on his

, and they came through. In particular, he turned to science teacher Josh Ziady, English teacher Catherine Theriault, Spanish teacher Elena Garcia-Velasco college-readiness teacher Keri Hughes and math and physics teacher Rafael Bobenrieth.

All bilingual, all worked long unpaid hours before and after school to help him and his classmates, he says.

angel1.jan3.2010.JPGView full sizeGutierrez (center, both hands on the hula hoop) and classmates Matthew Cha and David Cortes met with teacher Rafael Bobenrieth over break, using a hula hoop to illustrate principles of electric circuits.

They told him about college and how to get there. They taught him brilliantly, he says. They challenged him to read more deeply, investigate further, write more logically.

Gutierrez is a pleasure to teach, his teachers say, because of his palpable thirst for knowledge.

"He's like a sponge. He's really, really inquisitive," Ziady says. "He is a learner in the true meaning of that word. He is interested in how things work, how you know things, how things connect."

And, they say, he shows great gratitude for all they give.

Garcia-Velasco was deeply moved to receive a thank-you letter from him junior year, which said in part, "Cuando yo haga algo enorme en mi vida lo voy a hacer con la educación que mis maestros y maestras me han dado." ("When I do something big in my life, I'll do it with the education that my teachers have given me.")

"Angel has absolutely no sense of entitlement," she says. "He is so appreciative."

To prepare students to pass the Advanced Placement English exam, Theriault required them to write a fully developed essay for homework every day for a month. You might imagine what homework-strapped students might think of that, but this is Gutierrez's take: "Awesome!"

Speaking through a translator, his parents say their family's hardships helped give him that drive. Although they now live in a four-bedroom townhouse in the

mixed housing development, at times the whole family could afford only one room, sharing a small house with other families. Even now, the family lives paycheck to paycheck on Juan Gutierrez's earnings as a pillow-stuffer. They are happy beyond belief to know that Angel will have so many doors open to him.

Gutierrez says at least three factors in addition to his teachers helped him succeed. A cluster of fellow students, most of them friends since attending

, took the same hard courses he did, and they all pushed one another to excel.

His older brothers also pitched in. "Don't get a job -- just focus on school; that's your job," he says they counsel him. "They say, 'We could have gotten to college, but we messed up. Now you can do it.'" His brothers made sure he had a cell phone and spending money as long as he kept bringing home straight As.

Finally, his own work ethic. His parents say they never once had to tell him to do his homework, not once had to wake him to get to school on time.

He loves playing basketball with his brothers and cousins, and enjoys feasting on the turkey, tacos, ceviche and other dishes his brother, mother and sometimes he prepares for the extended family's frequent weekend get-togethers. But day in and day out, his life centers on his studies.

After school, he turns off the TV, the computer, the music. Four straight hours focused on homework is his standard, he says. He begins his assignments the day they are given, not the day before they are due. "I don't procrastinate. I can't sleep if I don't do my homework."

Junior year was a killer. He took a full schedule at Roosevelt, including four AP classes -- biology, calculus, English composition and Spanish literature. Then on Saturdays, he took chemistry at

-- five hours of lecture followed by a four-hour lab.

"It was horrible," he says. "I'll never do it again, but I did it." He got an A-plus.

By the time he leaves high school, he will have passed seven science classes, including AP biology, AP physics and AP environmental science. He plans to become an engineer, get a Ph.D. and specialize in wave energy.

But he said it has been a more important, more personal step to master both English and Spanish at a high level.

When he entered Roosevelt, he had good conversational Spanish, but that was it. His Spanish reading, writing and vocabulary skills were about fifth-grade level, he says.

He did well in freshman Spanish, but in 10th grade, a scheduling clash forced him to take the plunge. He couldn't fit in sophomore Spanish, so he became the first Roosevelt student to take AP Spanish as a sophomore.

Garcia-Velasco emphasized reading and writing about great Spanish literature, not reviewing grammar and conjugation rules, he says. "She focuses on the content -- 'Are you analyzing correctly? Are you making good arguments? Keep reading in Spanish and you'll improve.' She's such an amazing teacher."

That year, he also became the first to earn the top grade of 5 on the AP Spanish exam.

The next year, he managed another first, when he and one classmate scored a 4 on the AP Spanish literature test. This year he is taking 400-level Spanish literature classes at

.

Gutierrez knows few people who are as fully literate in both Spanish and English as he is. He thinks and dreams in both languages, he says.

"It's been so important for me to get that identity as a bilingual person and a Spanish-speaking person," he says. "It makes me proud."

His mother cradles her youngest son's face in her hands and cries tears of joy and sadness at the thought of him being across the country in Rhode Island for the next four years.

But Angel Gutierrez can hardly wait, even though he has never been there. "I love the atmosphere of nerds and people who just love school," he says. "I just want to be there already."

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