Come to school early in the morning, and you will see him. As you roam the empty halls, you first may hear the whistle of the rotating wheels but soon enough he will pass you, not saying a single word, only ceaselessly pumping his wheelchair up the carpeted ramp. For that brief second, you realize you have seen the teacher before, yet you can’t recall his name or subject. While this will gnaw at you for the rest of the day, it is likely you won’t see him again until tomorrow.

Tucked away in the library, English as a Second Language teacher Uriel Escobedo’s classroom is one that few students notice or attend. From all three of his classes, he teaches only about 32 students this year, yet his impact on their education is a vital part of Wenatchee High School’s mission of empowering all students to learn.

“Students that have not been in the country for so many years or have been but just been moving around for working situations…we need to provide a program that provides those students the opportunity to to learn English and try to develop not only the proficiency of the English language but any dream that they may have,” Assistant Principal Ricardo Iniguez said.

Escobedo compares his classes to foreign language classes taken as electives, in which migrant and/or bilingual students learn the second language, English, through reading, writing, speaking, and listening. He also helps his students with work from other subjects and beyond just his beginning and intermediate ESL class, Escobedo also teaches Core Success for students who have advanced from ESL classes and entered regular English.

“He understands the progression of learning a new language, he relates to the students through experiences, backgrounds. He knows how to scaffold the learning process; he does an amazing job with that,” Iniguez said.

Like those he teaches, Escobedo also took ESL classes, from about kindergarten to second grade. Growing up in Los Angeles, he believes his own background gives off a “been there, done that” quality that lets his students know he means business.

“I’m from a big city. Whatever happens in a small town is magnified,” Escobedo said. “If I wasn’t involved in something, the kid next to me was up to something.”

Around the age of 16, an accident resulted in a spinal injury that has put Escobedo in a wheelchair ever since. However, he doesn’t consider this condition a major factor in his life.

“Life seems normal. [Being in a wheelchair] is something you don’t think about. If you have to do school, you have to do it like everyone else. If you have to find a profession, then that’s what you think, ‘What do I want to be?’ I had to pick a route, and that’s what I did,” Escobedo said.

This route was teaching. After his family decided to move to the valley around 1990, Escobedo attended Wenatchee Valley College for a transfer degree, earned his bachelor’s at Central Washington University, and then his master’s at Washington State University.

“The evolution was clear to me. Wanting to be a teacher, wanting to be a Spanish teacher based on a mentor I had, and then once I got a little more into it, I realized there was a bigger need, which was ESL, and I wanted to teach language that way as opposed to as an elective,” Escobedo said.

His landed his first job in 2003 teaching Spanish and ESL at Cascade High School in Leavenworth before coming to WHS in 2005. In addition to ESL, Escobedo has taught Spanish Literacy for Native Spanish speakers and bilingual instruction for U.S. History, World History, and Contemporary World Problems.

“I like language learning, knowing about different cultures, the linguistics,” Escobedo said. “I like working with this age group. I think it’s easier to get along with, and it’s more a higher level of learning and thinking.”

With his wife, Escobedo has seen his two sons graduate from WHS and has two younger daughters to go, one of whom is a freshman this year. Like the majority of the student body, his children have not seen him often in the building, only having come by for the occasional lunch money.

“I don’t try to [keep a low profile]. My main focus is just being in the classroom and teaching and working with students,” Escobedo said. “I don’t really have to go out in the main hallways, doing prep work or even have lunch or anything because I have the break and coffee room attached to the library.”

Outside of the classroom, Escobedo said he enjoys attending his children’s sports games, reading, gardening, working out, and spending free time with his family. He drives a car with a hand-controlled brake and accelerator, and when it comes to going up those WHS hallways, Escobedo said “it probably looks more difficult than it is.”

“They seem a little steep,” he said. “My way of looking at is that the ride downhill makes up for the work uphill.”