Kathy Ortiz, born in Bedford-Stuyvesant and bred in Bushwick, has a thick, self-described Nuyorican accent. “Don’tcha love it?” she asks. “It’s so serious, so thick. I don’t want to get rid of it.”
    But her accent isn’t the only thing she’s committed to keeping. She also has a lifelong passion for education, which brought her to Brooklyn College for a master’s degree in school leadership. She taught elementary school for many years and currently holds an administrative position, but she wants to be a principal.
    “The program here is far better than anywhere else,” says Ortiz, who has a bachelor’s degree in linguistics and a master’s in reading specialization from Hunter College. “Here you learn how to write observation reports; you learn real things. Other programs have a lot more theory. Here, you get a practical, real education.”
    As a testing coordinator at an East Harlem school, Ortiz is responsible for making sure the school is in compliance with state-mandated exams. “At work, I see and use what all my professors have taught me,” she says.  
    Her passion for education is rooted in the fact that she laments not getting a better one growing up. “I went to nine different elementary schools and five junior highs,” she says. “We moved around a lot. I really don’t know how I was able to learn anything.”
     She says that many of her peers and even some of her siblings ended up going down the wrong path. She was interested in going into education because she wanted to help steer a new generation of kids in the right direction. “As a young teacher, I thought I was going to save everyone,” she says. “I learned very quickly that was not the case. That was tough.” 

    Still, she says seeing students she taught long ago grow up and succeed makes it worth it. “I have students who are now twenty-five, and some of them have graduated from college. They come back to visit me and show me their degree. That is very rewarding,” she says. “I even had some of my students come to my wedding. When I see that they behave the way I taught them, that they treat people they way I taught them, and that they teach others the same lessons, that tells me I did my job.”
    Thanks to Brooklyn College, she feels ready for the next step. “I think I’ll be a good principal,” says Ortiz, who will finish up her course work this semester.  “And Brooklyn College has definitely given me the tools for that. The work has been tough here but good.”