SAUGUS — When Kenneth Ibarra Suarez’s family moved to the United States from Mexico, he knew just three English words — “chicken,” “bathroom,” and “chair.”
A strong math student, the 11-year-old was thrown into an honors math course with an English-speaking teacher, where he finished with an 87 despite not knowing the language the course was being taught in.
In a statement, Suarez said he had to “go with the flow,” and tried to pay attention as best he could. Now, as a high-school senior at the Northeast Metropolitan Regional Vocational School in Wakefield, Suarez has been named not just the valedictorian for the class of 2023, but also the school’s outstanding vocational student of the year, according to a statement from the school.
As a senior, Suarez took four Advanced Placement classes and Honors Spanish III. If that wasn’t enough, he was also an active member of the National Honor Society, the National Technical Honor Society, the peer-mentoring program, Students Against Destructive Decisions, and the Northeast Metro Tech Student Council, where he served as the historian.
In addition to his academic honors, Suarez excelled on the soccer field, serving as captain for the school’s boys soccer team this season, and being named student-athlete of the year in 2022.
Suarez also received the Electrical Craftmanship Award, the highest honor a student enrolled at the Voke can receive from a technical shop.
Suarez credited his achievements to hard work and studying, saying he was motivated by the sacrifices his parents made — including sleeping without warm blankets in the winter when they first arrived in the United States to ensure their children had warm clothes.
“Seeing that and remembering how harsh those times were always kept me trying my best on every single project I did, whether it was in electrical or academics,” Suarez said. “That’s really my motivation. One day I want to be able to retire my parents and enable them to not work.”
Suarez works at Building Automation Systems in Weymouth through the school’s co-op program, and plans to continue working there over the summer. Come fall, he plans to attend the University of Massachusetts Lowell to study electrical engineering.
The school’s principal, Carla Scuzzarella, also a Saugus resident, said Suarez represents many of the positive aspects the school hopes to emulate.
“Kenny is a bright, determined, humble young man. He loves to learn. I have had the opportunity to watch him develop from a quiet, unsure ninth-grader into a confident, caring senior with a tremendous work ethic,” she said in the statement. “I am not only proud of Kenny as his principal, but I have the good fortune of living around the corner from Kenny in Saugus, so I am extra proud of him as a fellow Saugonian!”
