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Teacher of the Year document reveals murdered educator’s past
Third grade teacher Sonia Perez is shown in photographs taken at Rio Hondo Intermediate during the last year of her employment before she was found murdered. (Photos courtesy of Rio Hondo Intermediate)
By MICHAEL RODRIGUEZ
Managing Editor
editor@sbnewspaper.com
Nine days have passed since third grade teacher Sonia Perez of San Benito was brutally murdered at the age of 39 in what investigators with the Cameron County Sheriff’s Department believe was the result of a murder-for-hire plot allegedly orchestrated by her husband, 40-year-old Julio Cesar Perez.
Yet words she dedicated to her students, whom she considered her own children, have surfaced and serve as a chilling reminder of the heinous nature of her death and the tragic ordeal her family continues to endure.
A copy of Sonia Perez’s winning Teacher of the Year application, submitted during the 2008-2009 school year when she was employed with San Benito CISD at Judge Oscar De La Fuente Elementary, was obtained by the News Thursday via an open records request. The application, which consisted of the educator’s credentials, achievements and history, did not just reveal a detailed past – something that had previously been lacking in media reports – but a poetic message to her students. It was a message that, albeit written three years ago, may appear fitting today.
In Her Own Words
A graduate of Brownsville Porter High School in 1989, Sonia received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish with a minor in Bilingual Education in 2000 at the University of Texas at Brownsville-Texas Southmost College (UTB-TSC). She was then certified to teach Elementary Self-Contained and Bilingual ESL-Spanish for first through eighth grades.
Armed with a college degree and certification, Sonia embarked on a career in education that landed her a brief stint at Vermillion Elementary before being hired with San Benito CISD in 2001 to teach Bilingual classes at Rangerville Elementary, spanning grades first, third, and fourth. She was then hired as a third grade Bilingual teacher at Rio Hondo Intermediate in 2010.
The youngest of 13 siblings, Sonia’s passion for Bilingual studies began early on.
“I am a first generation immigrant from Tamaulipas, Mexico. My family immigrated to the United States when I was 14,” Sonia’s application reads, further informing that she was the first in her family to receive a college degree. “Growing up on a farm where education resources were limited, my learning gains had many trials. The elementary which I attended consisted of one teacher with grades first through fifth. Classroom resources were limited to a chalkboard, desks, and a main reading basal. It was there that my dream to become a teacher started.”
It wasn’t until she was 14 that Sonia, who would later direct a summer bible school program, volunteer and sponsor missionary work in Mexico, and mentor other school teachers as well as several married couples, that she experienced first-hand the difficulties of learning a new language. “Having entered a full English-speaking school (Porter), my educational challenges continued. It was the challenge of learning a new language that inspired me to become a Bilingual teacher, thanks to my parents, and Mrs. Hanggler, who encouraged me to continue my education despite the language barrier, the cultural differences, and the mocking of other students because I was ‘different,’” Sonia wrote.
Mentioned briefly in Sonia’s application is her husband Julio Cesar Perez, the man accused of paying at least $1,300 to have her murdered.
“My husband came into my life shortly after my mother died, and with his encouragement I was able to graduate in 2000 from the University of Texas-Texas Southmost College in Brownsville, Texas,” Sonia wrote of the man who is now accused of killing her. The two were pastors of a Pentecostal church they operated out of their home in San Benito near Highway 281.
For the rest of the story, pick up a copy of the April 10 edition of the San Benito News. Or view our E-Edition by clicking here.
1 comment
Now they have arrested two more men. My gosh, one of them( Daniel Castaneda) is the son of Alfredo Castaneda from Rio Hondo. This has hit to close to our neighborhood. Time to get up and move away from these people..