Employee of the Month: Improving the lives of migrant children

It is with pleasure that we honor Misty Cruz, Department Automation Specialist in Migrant Education, as the December 2021 Employee of the Month.

Misty has been working for the Migrant Education department for 11 years. Her role as a Department Automation Specialist is vast and plentiful! Not only does Misty manage the state required student data entry, but she also assists the Migrant management team and department with the Regional Service Agreement and the District Service Agreement development and submission -- a huge task – as well as the development of the four required regional budget revisions and program correlation. In addition, she processes purchase orders, provides technical support for Migrant staff, manages inventory and keeps track of attendance, travel expenditures and assists with the reporting of the State Service Delivery Plan that is required for compliance with California Department of Education regulation, as well as many other duties as assigned. Misty accomplishes all of this with a huge smile and a desire to serve.

Misty also contributes to the upbeat morale of the office, scheduling family events, coordinating outreach events and being part of the Migrant family Goodwill team.

Misty’s service to others is unmatched! Although she has a busy work schedule, she somehow manages to help others, such as getting up extra early every morning to care for horses at a Madera horse ranch and after work teaching horse riding lessons to children ages 2-6. Misty has also been teaching Bible studies for the past 10 years to young children at her church on the weekends and summer vacation. During the pandemic, she taught more than 100 students via virtual learning. In addition, Misty volunteers to provide Bible studies at Bella Vista Nursing Home for the elderly residents.

If that isn’t enough, Misty is also involved with baking cakes to donate to Icing Smiles and Cakes4Kids, which are organizations that provides cakes, cupcakes and cookies for critically ill children and to families who can’t afford to provide celebrations cakes.

“I feel very honored to even be nominated,” said Misty. “Migrant is a family and we work together, help each other, love each other and sometimes squabble with one another, but all with the end goal of improving the lives of children and teaching them the skills to succeed. I am an ‘in the background’ kind of girl, so it feels very surreal to be receiving an award for doing what my whole team loves to do. I am grateful for being chosen as the Employee of the Month.”