About Us

Join our BES community!

We need your help to bring Spanish language learning opportunities to everyone in our community. Become a donor and help sponsor student learning and other immersive learning opportunities for our entire community.

Or, join our Board of Directors and help us chart the course for our next 25 years!

Get on the list HERE.

Who We Are

In addition to the Spanish teachers, Boise Elementary Spanish has three part-time staff that work closely with the Board of Directors and make daily decisions regarding the program. Their primary role is to hire, train and support teachers as well as administer the program and manage the budget.

Melissa Hassler, Executive Director

A native of California, Melissa studied Spanish for four years in high school and three

semesters in college. But it wasn’t until she participated in UC Berkeley’s study abroad

program and spent a year in Barcelona, Spain, that she was able to communicate

comfortably in a second language. She worked so hard to learn Spanish, that she

vowed never to forget it.

Living abroad was one of the best experiences Melissa has ever had. While in

Barcelona, not only did she work on mastering Castellano (Castillian Spanish), she also

studied Catalan (the language spoken in the northeast region of Spain) and sang in a

Galician choir (Galician is the language spoken in the northwest of Spain.)

Melissa relocated to Boise from Southern California in 2015. Her son and daughter attend Roosevelt Elementary.

Melissa brings 15 years of experience working with clients in the entertainment, game,

software, and consumer products industries. As a marketer and project manager, she

has worked with every type of organization, from non-profits, government agencies, and

start-ups, to fortune 500 companies including Microsoft and Disney.

Melissa believes that being multilingual is an essential key to success in today's world.  Developing early second-language communication skills will provide our Boise students with exponentially more opportunities at every stage in life than their English-only speaking peers.  Every student in Boise and beyond needs BES!

Jenna Zapata, Staff Supervisor

Jenna was born and raised in a wholesome Mexican-American family, where she began learning Spanish as a girl. She started studying Spanish at BSU in 2008, and decided to study abroad to learn more about the Latin American language and its many cultures. Upon her return the US, Jenna started working with a local Spanish preschool and from that point on knew where her career would lead. Since then, she has proudly taught with Boise Elementary Spanish and is now the owner of a Spanish enrichment program in the Treasure Valley. Her love for teaching Spanish is always growing and as a teacher her goal is to find new, innovative ways to teach Spanish. Her aspiration is to share this language and her experiences with others in hopes to inspire multiculturalism as a way of life.

Valerie Mabry, Bookkeeper

Board of Directors

Boise Elementary Spanish is a non-profit organization and is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors. The voluntary board was formed in 1996 to oversee the operations of BES and is involved in developing policy, setting direction, overseeing curriculum development and making decisions concerning financial matters. The Board is comprised of the Executive Board and the Parent Ambassador Council.  

Carol Meli, Board President

Carol is brand new to the BES organization and a passionate supporter of bi-lingual education for school age children and adults!  She is currently phasing out of her job as Sales Operations Manager in the Graphics Printing Organization at HP here in Boise, and joins BES to stay connected to the language and culture she has come to love during her years working with Spanish speakers around the world.

Carol says her study of Spanish was completely “elementary” until she began working with all the talented Spanish speakers at HP.  The philosophy and focus of BES recognizes the importance of starting EARLY (young minds have young synapses) resonated with her enough to contact BES and ask to join the talented team of people bringing Spanish to Boise classrooms.

Why Learn Another Language? (according to Carol)

It opens up a WORLD of opportunity

·Make travel easier and enjoy the broad perspective of other cultures

·Access literature and language from a completely different angle

·Understand market research, brand management, finance and operations internationally

Leah Victorino, Board Past-President and Spanish-language educator
Leah joined the board not because she has children in the program, but because she is passionate about teaching language, culture, and global understanding to people of all ages. She adds that she knows that it is especially beneficial for learners to start young; BES provides that opportunity. Leah began Spanish at North Junior High and loved languages and culture so much that she continued to take Spanish in high school as well as some French. She went on to the University of Idaho to earn a B.A. in Spanish and in International Studies plus an Education Certificate for Spanish and ESL (English to Speakers of other Languages). During college Leah spent one year on exchange in Bilbao, the Basque Region of Spain- an invaluable experience. Spain became a second home and she got the travel bug. She loves being in new places, learning new ways of life, and communicating with people in their native language. She made her way around Spain and Europe during that year abroad and has also ventured through Mexico, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Peru, and Ecuador but still has many Latin American countries left on her list! Leah was born and raised in Boise. After college, travels, and living in Seattle, she returned to the area as a VISTA Volunteer for a year with the Hispanic Cultural Center of Idaho then went on to teach Spanish and ESL in Nampa.

Lael Uberuaga-Rodgers, Webmaster

Lael grew up in Boise, Idaho, where her interest in her Basque heritage and the established Basque community sparked her interest in the Spanish language. She studied Music, Spanish and Anthropology at the College of Idaho and has made several visits to Spain on tour with her dance group, Oinkari Basque Dancers. She is also learning Euskara, the first language of the Basque people (Spanish is the second.) She values cultural diversity, and knows that introducing children to Spanish as early as possible will not only help them develop cultural understanding, but arm them with a valuable skill that only becomes increasingly important in today's world.

Dustin Ayres, Secretary
Dustin is a Boise native and recently graduated from Boise State University with a Spanish minor. This is his fifth year with BES and he is loving every minute of it. It's vital to empower Idaho's young students with cultural awareness and the opportunity to become bilingual.

Ray Warner, Board Member

Hi, My name is Ray Warner and as a former student of BES over ten years ago I can attest to the benefits of a head start in language learning from a young age. This interest in the Spanish language continued through high school and into my continued education. As a junior in college I studied abroad in Mallorca, Spain where I learned the hard way how different Latin American and Castilian Spanish can be.
I graduated from Westminster College with a degree in Spanish and Latin American Studies. Upon graduating my wife and I went on to teach English as a Second Language in Colombia, Spain and Russia before coming back to Boise.

Being someone who is partaking in the life long saga of language learning gives
me a greater understanding of what kids in the program are going through. I also have a
passion for community involvement and connecting people to foster relationships and
further mutual goals. Being part of BES is a gateway to bring to light the importance of
language learning in the community and to give back to an organization which served me
well in my younger years as a budding language learner.

 

The BES board is actively seeking new members, specifically people with experience/interest in grant writing, accounting, fundraising and language acquisition. If you are interested in participating in the administration and development of Boise Elementary Spanish, please contact Melissa Hassler, Program Director, at melissa@boiseelementaryspanish.org or 661.373.3673.