Creating the winning team with Dr. Jackie Medina

This article was a winner of Lookout’s 2026 Journalism Scholarship Challenge, which invited high school students to highlight an unsung hero in their lives. Learn more and find all of the winners here.

When picturing a hero, many would imagine someone standing courageously in the spotlight. They seem superior or more important than all the people around them, showing up only when danger calls. I believe the definition of a hero is the exact opposite: humble, selfless and compassionate. 

Dr. Jackie Medina is someone who showcases these characteristics, benefiting and uplifting others every day. In total, she has worked at Starlight Elementary School in Watsonville for 21 years as a teacher, vice principal,and now principal. She has been the principal of Starlight Elementary for 10 years. This was all while simultaneously achieving her doctorate in educational leadership. She is dedicated to making Starlight the best campus it can be through co-leading the culinary garden and kitchen project, hosting monthly community events and working to shape the school’s walking school bus. Dr. Medina is the type of hero who steps out of the spotlight to let others shine. 

She cares deeply about creating a community that families and staff feel a part of and that students can grow up in. She says that by highlighting her community’s strengths, ¨students and families develop leadership through the school.¨ One of the ways she did this was by implementing the Emeril Lagasse culinary garden and teaching kitchen. This is a nationally recognized culinary and garden program, with only six programs active in the nation. Dr. Medina reached out to many individuals and organizations, with 200-plus agreeing to contribute. Through her efforts, Starlight raised $1.5 million for the garden and kitchen; organizations alongside community members physically help build the garden. She gathered parents, staff and family members to become the leaders of the project to center the voice of her community. The garden and kitchen are a huge part of Starlight´s atmosphere, being a place of discovery, fun and relaxation. 

The impact of Dr. Medina’s  efforts don’t stop there. She holds monthly community events for parents, families and staff to attend with the purpose of education and raising money in fun ways. The events have different themes each month, such as career night or family wellness night, with each one gathering 200 to 400 people. She says that most recently, Starlight  hosted a family literacy night, where attendees read books by Latinx authors for Hispanic History Month. Alongside that, they made posole in their new garden and kitchen, had dance classes, a mariachi band and many piñatas for students to take a swing at. When asked what motivated her to host events like these, she said it was a way to ¨bridge home and school, not just for fun, but also focused on academic parent engagement.¨ This means kids feel safer and more excited to learn because their whole family is now connected to the school. 

Events like these encourage the community to feel a sense of belonging. While talking to other teachers who work at the school, they all reported that Dr. Medina is the glue that holds Starlight together. Ms. Hernandez, a kindergarten teacher at Starlight Elementary, mentions that ¨Dr. Medina tries to involve and listen to everyone’s perspective, which truly makes it feel like a family here.¨ Ms. Hernandez also says that Starlight is a huge aspect in her daughters’ identities, both being former or current students.

Dr. Medina not only gathers the community but also helps mediate problems. Through staff meetings and annual surveys, she discovered that attendance rates were low. Since most students live 1 to 2 miles away from the school, Dr. Medina personally worked with an Ecology Action partner to establish a route for a walking school bus. Community members walk through the neighborhood, with students and parents joining along the way, ending at Starlight in a big parade. Dr. Medina goes on to further explain that ¨the community has made it their own through dance parties, bird watching stops, costumes and music.¨ This shows that Dr. Medina´s work has created a community that can express themselves freely, with her describing it as ¨everyone being on a ´winning team.´¨  She says that this attitude is what will carry on the amazing community at the school and is the foundation of any good community. 

Dr. Medina realizes that the most heroic thing to do in creating a community is to build the foundation first in order to allow all members of the community to blossom and grow. She works proactively for problems at Starlight, is humble about what she has done, and does not try to overshadow anyone around her. After all she has done for Santa Cruz County’s current and future community, Dr. Medina deserves a moment in the spotlight to shine. 

Kassidy Seibert is a student at Soquel High School