Posted December 12, 2016
While many Colorado teens have jobs, few clock in for their shift in Mexico.
“I manage a family business,” said Denver Online High School student Yudiel Ochoa. He currently serves as the General Manager of his family’s restaurant, called 4 Restaurant, in southwest M?xico.
He said, “I set up the schedules for every employee every week. I pay them every week. Every week I do a food inventory, a wine inventory, I make a journal of every transaction. I manage the cashier, so I make a report of sales every night.”
He even plays in the restaurant’s band, alongside his mom and step dad, and he also does the marketing.
He splits his time between countries, living with his step brother while in Denver and heading back to Mexico during seasons of increased tourism clientele. He said, “Because the season started in Mexico, I need to go back for three months. After those three months, I come back here. Probably I’ll spend like one month to three weeks here whenever I come.”
“What’s really nice is if a student is a resident of Colorado, they are able to attend school with us no matter where they are in the world,” said Denver Online High School Principal Ian Jones.
While he’s here in the states, his teachers equip him to succeed when he’s abroad. “I met all my teachers and they told me to contact them if I have a doubt or something I want to ask them. So I can just Zoom (virtual video conference) with them, have a voice chat, or a webcam chat, and also call them or send emails to them and they’ll reply in less than 24 hours,” Ochoa expressed. This is especially helpful when needing math help from his teacher, Linda Welp.
Committed to one day earning his college master’s degree, online education has sharpened his time management skills to making his dreams a reality, contesting, “Honestly I didn’t think online school was very hard, but it is. If you are not organized, and have a tight schedule, you won’t make, you won’t make it.”
It’s a team effort when it comes to this student’s work and school life balance, crediting his step dad for finding a schooling option that fist his unique situation, saying, “He actually Googled it: ?Best online school ever,’ and he found Denver Online.”
Denver Online is just happy to be able to help students pursue their own personalized and meaningful path.
Ochoa concluded, “I want to work as hard in school because it is my education for life. And I want to work hard in the restaurant because I want it to succeed. I have to work as hard for both of them.”