This ‘home-grown educational maestro’ left her mark on bilingual education in Fort Worth

Jesse Martinez, former District 6 Fort Worth Independent School District Board member, recalled his joy to discover Alice Contreras was his second grade teacher at M. G. Ellis Elementary School.

As an asthmatic child, he worried his frequent absences would force him to fall behind, resulting in poor grades. Contreras ensured he kept abreast of his schooling.

Martinez never forgot her dedication to educating children, observed her advancement from the classroom to FWISD director of bilingual program, and her support of other Latina educators. When an elementary school in his district was built to ease crowding, he advocated in 2000 to name it for Alice Contreras.

Born in Fort Worth, Feb. 24, 1928, Contreras attended Fort Worth public schools, showing an aptitude for music and teaching. At Texas Wesleyan College, she played the piano at several recitals and taught lessons to indigent Mexican American children at Wesley Community House. After graduation in 1951, she started her teaching career at M. G. Ellis as one of the few Mexican American teachers in the district.

Observing firsthand the need for bilingual teachers, she moved into the bilingual department and applied for the director’s position in 1976. She recalled two male interviewers asking about the community’s reaction to a female director. At the time, most of the FWISD administrators were Anglo males. She responded it wasn’t a problem.

Rudy Rodriguez, the first bilingual director, said, “I always felt she was the best qualified to take the director’s position for the bilingual program when I left the district in 1973.”

Fort Worth in the 1970s and 1980s saw an influx of immigrants from Mexico and Southeast Asia. After years of state and national legal wrangling, FWISD opened its doors to undocumented students without forcing them to pay tuition. Through the combination of a supportive Superintendent I. Carl Candoli and the brilliant leadership of Contreras, bilingual and English as a second language classes spread to schools where hundreds of once marginalized students were able to master English and their studies.

Aware of the shortage and competition for certified bilingual teachers, Contreras recruited talented Latinas from within and outside the district. Guadalupe Barreto, current FWISD principal of the World Languages Institute, attributed her career goal change from pharmacy to education to Contreras. Recently arrived from Mexico in 1974, she took a job as a teaching assistant. Through Contreras’ intervention, she secured a four-year scholarship to attend Texas Wesleyan College and earned a degree in bilingual education with certification.

Jo Linda Martinez, retired FWISD director of the Absolute Xcellence leadership program, recalled Contreras offering her a TWC scholarship to pursue a degree in elementary education. Busy as a wife, mother, and employed in the district’s Student Placement Center, she deliberated. When Contreras suggested her recently deceased father, prominent businessman Manuel Jara, would have expected her to accept the challenge, she earned the degree.

Martha De Anda, Ph.D., the first principal of Alice Contreras Elementary School, said she was a student at Texas Woman’s University, close to graduating with her master’s in elementary education when Contreras persuaded her to teach in Fort Worth.

A home-grown educational maestro, Contreras expanded bilingual and ESL programs, convinced skeptics of their value and elevated talented Latina leaders. Alice Contreras passed away Nov. 10, 2013. She was 85. Students learning well in more than one language brought music to la directora’s ears.

Author Richard J. Gonzales writes and speaks about Fort Worth, national and international Latino history.