When a friend came to him and confided she was failing her high school classes, Emilio Saenz listened.
She was falling behind, she said. Spanish is Andrea Valenzuela’s native language and the barriers to learning math, science and navigating high-school life only in English were tough.
“When I arrived in the United States, one of the biggest challenges for me was getting into school,” Valenzuela said via text message. “I had to make new friends, interact with people who didn’t speak my language, and have different classes and routines. It was a huge change for me. I found a school near me, but I had no idea what it was like or how it worked.
“Once I started there, I realized that language can be a big barrier to learning, but not impossible.”
As Saenz heard his friend, he thought about the other students — from first graders to high schoolers — who needed classroom options.
“She only spoke Spanish but she’s forced to learn all day in English and it’s near impossible for her to get good grades and succeed in school,” said Saenz, a sophomore at Phoenix Country Day who speaks Spanish and English.
Saenz, 16, is the vice chair for the student panel for the State Board of Education. He started to ask questions and researched how he could assist Valenzuela. And the meager resources he found ignited a plan to assist his friend and others like her throughout Arizona. He found schools with dual-language programs, but knew the list was incomplete. After a public-records request to the Arizona Department of Education was denied, Saenz said, he was motivated to create his own list.
And the Navegante website was born. Meaning “navigator” in English, the site supports families with questions about dual-language programs and details the model used. Its features include a school finder based on zip codes, state letter grades and shows whether buses are available to and from school.
“I realized the state makes it super hard to find and not enough people know bilingual education even exists in Arizona,” he said. “So I built an AI web scraping model that goes through the meeting minutes of school districts.”
He said the tool reviews records from districts across the state to identify when and where bilingual programs are discussed.
Many English-only programs include two-to-four-hour blocks learning the language. This limits time to take other classes and can isolate learners from other English-speaking students.
“I think one of the hardest decisions I made here was finding a school, and I didn’t know how to find one, where to find one, or what I needed to get into one,” Valenzuela said. “I hope the site helps Spanish-speaking teenagers find a school where they feel comfortable and can be in a healthy environment, where they receive support, and where, thanks to that support, they learn new things and have better experiences.”
Here are five things to know about Saenz, what inspires his work and the site:
1. The Arizona graduation rate for English learners is dismal. At 60%, the state high school graduation rate for English learners is among the lowest in the country and lower than the state’s overall graduation rate of 77%, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s analysis of 2022 data.
2. More program info needed: “I want to just start spreading the word and getting the site in the hands of people that actually need it,” Saenz said. To include a dual language program or school in Arizona that is not on the site, email emilio.saenz@pcds.org
3. Arizona is the only state with English-only legislation still in effect. Under the state’s laws and policies, including Prop. 203 passed in 2000, students who aren’t proficient in English are segregated at school for hours at a time from their peers whose primary language is English. Uncovering a 2024 Arizona Luminaria story on this subject sparked Saenz’s interest, he says.
4. He’s a state champion debater too: “I am big into speech and debate,” he says. His debate season is year-round and involves travel across the country. He won the Arizona state title in congressional debate last month.
5. Next stop: State Board of Education meeting on March 30. Saenz will unveil the site and talk with state education leaders about his findings. “I think when Emilio sets himself up to do something, he approaches it with passion and dedication that are maybe more than what the average person would invest or be passionate about,” said his mom, Alma Chavez. “He’s very serious, very professional with whatever he wants to do. He’s also a go-getter and he does not shy away from a challenge.”
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