Science teacher Brigette Hernandez ’12, M.Ed ’18 understands that she fills a distinct need. Just ask Albert Rojas, a senior enrolled in English as a second language (ESL) classes at Woonsocket High School. • “She has our back,” says Rojas, who as a freshman took ESL integrated science courses taught by Hernandez and is now enrolled in her anatomy course. “Even when I didn’t have Ms. Hernandez as a teacher in my sophomore and junior years, I knew I could still come to her with any issue.” • Hernandez, a mother of three, also spends weekday evenings educating adult ESL students in Cumberland and Cranston in the Rhode Island Family Literacy Initiative program. A Providence native, she is the daughter of Dominican immigrants. Although she was raised bicultural and bilingual, she identifies with the needs of English language learners because she herself was the first in her family to attend and graduate from college. • “I know what it’s like for students from immigrant families who have to...