Molly Smith / El Paso Matters
Saturday, 23 January 2021 | 06:00
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Vince Sheffield’s focus since taking over the county’s largest school district late last year has been to implement strategies to get students and staff safely back to the classroom. Most of the students in the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) have been in classes from home since last March, but effective February 1, the state requires the district to open campuses to anyone who wishes to receive face-to-face instruction.
It’s also on their mind to figure out how much ground students have lost during remote learning and to come up with ways to get them back on track academically.
It’s an overwhelming time to be an educator, but Sheffield, 57, didn’t hesitate when he was offered to serve as interim superintendent in the wake of Juan Cabrera’s sudden resignation.
“I believe that El Paso ISD, no matter what scandal or tribulations we’ve been through, we’ve always had great people. Right now, the leadership team in El Paso is great, it’s top-notch, ”Sheffield said. “So I didn’t hesitate because I think our district needs to move forward.
“… I know I have the skills to keep moving forward and the skills to lead our team and stay focused and not go back in time, because when we do that we are not helping our students, and we are here to support them.”
Sheffield joined EPISD in 1993 as a fifth grade teacher at the now closed Alamo Elementary School in south El Paso. At the time, few teachers wanted to teach in the Segundo Barrio, he said, but it was the school he chose first.
“I chose that school because I thought I could make a difference there,” he said. “Children were being overlooked, so to speak.”
More than two decades later, Sheffield said that the five years he spent at Alamo were the highlight of his career.
Raised in a large family where resources were scarce, the Michigan native was able to identify with the Mexican American students he taught. When he suggested during a staff planning meeting that students visit the El Paso Zoo for their next field trip, the proposal to go out somewhere “around the corner” was met with laughter, he recalls.
But he insisted and surveyed the students. As expected, 90 percent of them had never been to the neighborhood zoo because they didn’t have 50 cents to pay for admission. In the end, their idea won out and the students went to the zoo.
Today, at age 33, Arlene Baeza still remembers the 1996-97 school year when Sheffield was her fifth grade teacher.
“He was an incredible teacher,” Baeza said. “We had a great class and he just tried hard to get us all educated. He had great charisma and was very enthusiastic about his work ”.
“When you have teachers so supportive, who want the best result for you, it makes you want to be better,” he said. “You see there is a future for you.”
Sheffield went on to work as an Assistant Principal at Newman Elementary School and then as Principal at Hillside Elementary School before leaving the school setting in 2004 to transfer to the district’s central office, where he spent most of his career in human resources. He was appointed deputy superintendent for administration and academics in 2016, a position he continues to serve as interim superintendent.
That varied experience is useful in his new role, he said, because running a district requires an understanding of “how all the different departments and roles fit together” to form a system.
El Paso Teachers Association President Norma De La Rosa met Sheffield while working together on district committees and during consultations, when union representatives meet with administrators to discuss employee salaries and conditions. labor. She liked that he was receptive to the opinions and concerns of others and urged the school board to appoint him to the interim position.
“The fact that you take the time to listen, ask questions, have that kind of dialogue, you don’t find much of that today, unfortunately, in education,” De La Rosa said.
Sheffield described her leadership style as one that is transparent, transformative, and involves others.
“I firmly believe that teachers are part of the team, and so are all employees, and those people should have a voice in how we approach daily activities,” he said. “I am a team person. I am not here to give decrees, so to speak. That is nowhere on the path that I lead ”.
Sheffield has lived in El Paso for the past three decades since retiring from the United States Army as a commissioned officer. It was the military that brought him to El Paso to train, and while stationed at Fort Bliss, he volunteered at the schools and met his wife Michelle, the daughter of the late Texas Western College basketball star – now UTEP. -, Tyrone “Bobby Joe” Hill.
“I fell in love with the culture and the environment,” he said of his first visit to El Paso, adding: “El Paso is my home. This is where I will be until I am no longer on this Earth. “
With a bachelor’s degree in education from George Mason University of Virginia and a master’s degree in educational administration from the University of Texas at El Paso, he is the first African-American superintendent in EPISD’s more than 130-year history, and one of nearly three dozen superintendents of this ethnic group in the state, according to the Texas Alliance of African American School Educators.
Sheffield said the historic nature of his appointment did not initially cross his mind, but that it is exciting and meaningful, particularly to the African-American community in El Paso, who he said is “really excited.”
“I am the first and I hope I am not the last,” he said.
Sheffield has expressed interest in landing the permanent position and the school board has said they will consider him for the vacancy. It’s unclear how long he will be able to serve as an interim, as the search process is still in its infancy, but it is unlikely that a hiring will take place until at least the summer.
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