Erika Soto is an interesting person and has a passion for child safety. To me she is very interesting and also kind. She has worked at Ames Middle School and also in McCauliffe school as security, and also has helped increase the security in the schools to make it a safer environment for the students.

She started work with security in McCauliffe. She got organized with the cops and helped set up more security. She helped establish things such as more patrols and also more cops there in the morning and afternoon. Now she has done the same at Ames Middle School. She also works there as a security personnel. She feels that safety, especially for the young, is very important. She is against anything/anyone that could harm children. She would like to see these things be changed.

When asked what changes she has seen has seen in our community and she said, “Back then you didn’t really see parents involved in the schools, they are a lot more involved. I think that’s very important for the youth. My belief is that education is teamwork. It’s teamwork between parents, teachers, and also students. Also everybody else in the community because together we can make a difference.” She thought that this change was very important because, in her opinion, young people do better with the support of their parent. I would strongly agree with this because when parents are involved, I believe it helps kids push themselves to do better.

Erika Soto believes that the most challenging part of her work is earning kids’ trust. She believes this because they are becoming young adults and it is hard for them to know who to trust. Also she believes standardized testing is used to separate ethnic groups. She says this because she had an experience with her daughter a few years ago. Her daughter was not allowed to to take  a bilingual version of the I.S.A.T. because everyone had to take the same test. She thought this was wrong because is she was a spanish speaker she should have gotten an easier version of the test because the fact that she didn’t know much spanish. She believes this because of experiences with her own child and CPS.

Erika Soto believes that her work provides a useful service to the community. As a result of her work she has seen less violence in and around her community. Also in her school, Ames, she has noticed that there is not as much violence as there was before. Erika believes that her services have helped kids in her school feel safer and have also made the area around her school be safer.

Erika has helped me realize that one person's hard work can have great accomplishments. I think that she truly has helped her community a lot. Even if it was mostly around schools it is still a really big deal. To me this is really important because children need to be in a safe environment to be able to succeed. Kids deserve to live and learn in a safe environment and I believe that this is exactly what Erika Soto is doing. I have learned that Erika Soto is very passionate about her work and safety. Erika can be an inspiring person to anyone that believes that child safety is very important.