You could say that Melissa Bozkurt Garcia’s competitive nature propelled her to winning Ector County ISD’s Counselor of the Year award.
Growing up in El Paso with one sister and five girl cousins, they were all involved in similar sports and activities — sewing lessons, tap, tennis, volleyball and swim team to name a few.
“We’re all close in age. My sister and I are only 11 months apart,” Garcia said.
“To stand out, we had to be competitive and vocal. How that correlates to being counselor of the year is my first year or two, I was getting my bearings, learning the ropes and becoming proficient or exceeding proficiency in my expected duties, if you will, so year three I added; year four, I added,” she added.
In year five and six, Garcia said she would tell Crockett Principal Maribel Aranda she was going to get Counselor of the Year. Aranda was awarded Secondary Principal of the Year this year.
“My competitive nature was not for an accolade for myself. My competitive nature was to top myself to best serve the students and my school and our staff. … To win with Miss Aranda getting Secondary Principal of the Year made it so special, because like I had said earlier, Mr. Marquez may have hired me, but Miss Aranda is the person that believed in me and grew me,” Garcia said. “It just made it really, really special to win and have that honor,” Garcia said.
She’s referring to Executive Director of Leadership Mauricio Marquez.
For her part, Aranda said Crockett is blessed to have Garcia on board.
“Mrs. Bozkurt Garcia is one that is creative, willing to step up and help our students and looks for ways to celebrate both students and teachers. She is truly one of a kind and Crockett (is) lucky to have someone like her,” Aranda said.
Garcia didn’t start out wanting to be in education or counseling. In high school, she wanted to become a physical therapist and work with children. But when she was at Texas Tech University’s orientation camp before enrolling, they were going over her schedule and found that there were a lot of science classes involved.
Garcia thought maybe that wasn’t for her. Her mother, who was with Garcia, said she could go into education as a failsafe. Her family either has lawyers or educators with her dad being the sole entrepreneur.
“There was no escaping it,” she said.
Garcia earned a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education from Tech, graduating in three and a half years with honors. She later took a master’s degree in counseling from Lamar University and pursued a licensed professional counselor certification, but hasn’t become fully accredited yet.
During her 12-year career, Garcia taught in Lubbock and then at Crockett where she has been the last seven years.
“Graduating in December, it makes it kind of hard to find a job, so I moved home and did some long-term subbing … Then I challenged some of the certs (certifications) to make myself more marketable. I wound up in middle school special ed … I am a spiritual person, so I do believe that God has a plan,” Garcia said.
She added that she has a family member who has special needs so she is familiar and comfortable in that world.
After that, she decided to coach. She coached middle school tennis for a few years and switched to more comprehensive coaching — basketball, volleyball, track and cross country.
Coaching was what led her to counseling. One day Garcia was talking to a student in the locker room and that student was feeling defeated. Garcia encouraged her and told her she could confide in Garcia or any other trusted adults on campus.
The student told Garcia she should be a counselor because she said things in a “really good way.”
While she enjoyed coaching, Garcia said she didn’t feel passionate about it, so she decided to go back to school.
“I love kids. Education is an environment that suits my strengths … It’s a different relationship, for sure, because as an educator you see over 100 kids every day for the whole year and you make those relationships with those kids. As a counselor, you don’t make that strong of a relationship with that magnitude of kids,” she said.
That was unexpected, so she tried to find ways to connect with more students. Anytime an administrator was off, she would tell Aranda that she would take lunch duty. She also kept score books for basketball games or set up activity booths at family nights, all of which give Garcia a chance to interact with more students.
Garcia and her husband, Odessa High School Principal Anthony Garcia, will be married four years this summer, but they have been together for more than a decade. He has two children.
She added that it is a huge compliment to have your peers, colleagues, supervisors and committee who reviewed all the applications to choose her as counselor of the year.
“It’s rewarding to see that your hard work has been recognized,” Garcia said.
But that doesn’t mean she’s going to relax. Her competitive nature won’t let her.
“If anything it only … invigorated and inspired me. Like I said people had to believe in me and write the letters or recommendation, or see what was said about me to do that. In order to honor those people who believed in me, I would need to continue to pay it forward and continue to do my very best,” Garcia added.
