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Sarita Riddle-Bencriscutto
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ELL Get Ready! Educational Liaison (House 21 & 32)

Room #2121

Office Phone: 651-366-2894

Email: Sarita.Riddle-Bencriscutto@state.mn.us

Hello!!

    My name is Ms. Sarita and I am the Get Ready! teacher for ELL students here at Washington. I am also one of the advisors for our school’s Gay-Straight-Alliance!

    This is my 2nd year working at Washington Technology Magnet School and my 4th year working for the Get Ready! program. I actually started working for Get Ready! when I was still in college at the University of Minnesota; I was a work-study student and tutored at a school on the south side of Minneapolis. That was one of the ways I paid for my education, and my experiences as a tutor helped me get this job after graduating (now I can pay back all of my college loans! Yay!).

    I have a lot of experience navigating the journey through high school and higher education, and also have experience as a student living in a different country. I was not your typical high school student, as a kid living in foster care I moved around a lot and ended up at 7 different high schools, one of which was in the basement of a homeless shelter and another at a juvenile detention center. Despite a hectic home life, I was super straight-edge (but still awesome, obvz!) and managed to stay away from drugs and alcohol. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think that’s what kept me working towards my goals. I ended up graduating from Roseville Area High School in 2005; I didn’t have a program like Get Ready! or College Possible to help me out so during my senior year I applied to only one college, a small private school that I never actually took the time to visit (BAD IDEA!). I signed the loan papers, picked out my classes and had no idea what I was getting myself into. Needless to say I hated it! Two months later I dropped out expecting to transfer to the University of Minnesota, but with W’s on my transcript and bad grades from my senior year of high school (senior slide DOES exist!), I was not admitted. I was crushed.

    I decided to go to Minneapolis Community & Technical College to raise my grades so the University of Minnesota would take me. That was my ultimate goal: to get into the U. I spent two years at MCTC taking Women’s Studies classes and Art History classes (and some other classes that weren’t as much fun, but still necessary); I even studied abroad in Costa Rica! After what seemed like forever I applied to the U of M again and was so happy THEY ACCEPTED ME! I spent two more years in college studying Spanish & Latin American studies; I absolutely loved going to the U, it was a great fit for me and I even got to travel abroad again, this time in Venezuela.

    Now I am doing what I love, hanging out with awesome young people, learning about different cultures and picking up different languages. I’m getting tutored in Karen after school! Best of all, I get to help students try to NOT make the mistakes I made when I was in high school/college. And even if they do, hopefully what they learn will help them pick themselves up and keep trying!!!!!!!
 
Peace! & Love!