Filled with books on shelves stacked high, the classroom shines bright as the string lights sparkle and the soft first-block Spotify playlist plays in the background. English teacher Ms. Illiana Romero types on her computer as she greets every student with a big warm smile. 

Proud Westwood alumni, Ms. Romero returns to her roots after spending 12 years in New York. After obtaining her bachelor’s degree in English education and a minor in Latino studies from New York University (NYU), Ms. Romero began the journey of getting her master’s degree in education from Teachers College at Columbia shortly afterwards.

“’I’ve actually known since I was in first grade that I wanted to be a teacher,” Ms. Romero said. “There’s [actually] a long history of teachers in my family. My mom is a teacher [and] so many of my aunts were teachers and are retired now. I feel like it’s just in my blood.” 

 Along with her family, Ms. Romero’s inspiration includes her middle school band director, Ms. Molly Ward. Ms. Ward helped Ms. Romero learn to love music and inspired her to be a teacher. 

“I was really close to her,” Ms. Romero said. “When I was in highschool I would actually babysit her daughter which was really nice. Initially I wanted to major in music education and be a band director,” Ms. Romero said. “[However], my senior year of high school I realized I wanted to major in English education [instead].” 

After getting her degrees, Ms. Romero taught English in New York until she moved to Austin this past summer to teach English to 9th and 10th grade students.

This year is Ms. Romero’s seventh year teaching English to students and her first year back on the Westwood campus. 

“Returning to Texas, I knew that [there] would only be [one] place that I’d wanna teach,” Ms. Romero said. “Westwood.”