PASCO, Wash. – In 1984 the Washington State legislature created the Washington Award for Vocational Excellence, or the WAVE Scholarship. The aim was to show the importance of career and technical education for our state and this scholarship is still helping students to this day.
Each year three students, two high school students and one technical community college student in each legislative district. This year several students from our area won this scholarship.
One of those students is recent Chiawana High School graduate Jesus Chavez-Lara. Chavez-Lara is deaf, but that’s not stopping him.
“I didn’t expect to win any scholarship,” Chavez-Lara signed to me through an interpreter. ” This is the first time I’ve won a scholarship and it was moving.”
Chavez-Lara has spent the last year interning at an early childhood education program and says this just made his decision easier.
“I decided that I wanted to become a teacher of the deaf after working with the deaf and hard-of-hearing children in the program there,” he says. “It just increased my passion.”
He will be attending Central Washington University in the fall. He says he’s read it has a good American Sign Language program.
Larry Brown is a Co-Chair of the Washington Workforce Board. Brown says early childhood education sets kids up for a successful K-12 experience.
“It’s very important for the whole economy that we have both early child care, skilled child care and licensed child care as well as early childhood education,” Brown says.
According to the Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families, Benton County has 173 early childhood educators, they need 484. Franklin County only has 81 and is in need of 237.
Gary Chandler is another Co-Chair for the Washington Workforce board.
He says child care is difficult, especially in rural areas.
“It gets harder,” Chandler says. “Child care is a major impediment right now from parents being able to work because they can’t get child care.”
Chandler tells me despite the challenges Chavez-Lara has, he’s a great person for wanting to be in the early childhood education field. He hopes this will inspire others to take the same path.
Chavez-Lara tells me being deaf hasn’t stopped him before and it’s not going to stop him now.
“Deaf can do anything,” Chavez-Lara says. “My goal is to share that with the world. I played violin for several years and not being able to hear doesn’t mean you can’t.”
According to Chandler and Brown, there were over 200 applicants for the scholarship. Only 108 students from around the state were selected and over one million dollars in scholarships were handed out.
The money from the scholarships will go towards tuition, books, room and board and anything else they may need.
They said they plan to go to the legislature in 2024 to ask for more funds. They might even take a few of the WAVE winners with them for testimony.
Applications for the WAVE Scholarship open in early February and close in March.
