Madeleine Ayala Lopez ’97, Fourth Grade Teacher, Hackley School

Born in Chile, Madeleine moved to the United States with her parents when she was 10 months old. Her parents settled in the Van Tassel Apartments on Beekman Avenue in Sleepy Hollow, in the apartment where her mother lives to this day.

Madeleine was a high-achieving student in the Tarrytown public schools, and education was deeply valued by both her parents, even though neither had gone to college in Chile. “My teacher approached my parents and said I was a strong student and should apply to Hackley,” she reports. Her mother had worked for a Hackley family, and so her parents were aware that it was a good school -- but thought it was only accessible to very wealthy families. When they found out they could receive financial aid, her mother said, “THAT’s why we came to America -- so you could go to Harvard!”

Madeleine transitioned smoothly into the Hackley social environment when she entered in 8th grade. “It was fun being a student at Hackley, and everyone was so welcoming,” she recalls. But, she says, “the vocabulary my classmates used was more sophisticated -- I had to step it up. I was well prepared in math, but history was really tough. We had been assigned The Red Badge of Courage for summer reading and I hadn’t understood that meant I really had to read it! Mr. Olson gave a quiz the first day of school.” Entering in 8th grade allowed her to fully transition to the academic expectations so that by 9th grade, she says, “I had learned how to be ‘Hackley.’”

Moving toward senior year and college applications, her mother’s wish that she would attend Harvard was the only thing Madeleine knew about college, and she is grateful to her college counselor, Julie Lillis, who helped broaden her perspective. “I wanted to study math and international finance, thinking some day I could spend half my year in Chile. Julie suggested I apply to the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown.” She went on to Georgetown and graduated with a major in Science Technology and International Affairs.

Yet still, it took a while for her path forward to become clear. She worked first as an international trafficker for a wine importer, using her English, Spanish and French language skills to work with vineyards in Chile, France, and Italy. Then, she took a position at Nextel, where she quickly advanced in the ranks.

Meanwhile, her fiancé, Andrew Lopez, had also started working at Nextel. Both were frustrated with the work and decided to enroll in a Foundations of Education class at Manhattanville College. They loved it, took a second class, and then took the bold step of quitting their jobs and entering the Jumpstart program at Manhattanville, an intensive program that puts new teachers right in the classroom after a fast-paced summer immersion in education courses. Andy and Madeleine completed the summer course, got married over Labor Day weekend, and each started teaching in Bronx public schools the day after Labor Day.

Teaching 4th grade in the Bronx was, she says, “the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I was the only 4th grade teacher, so there was no peer with whom I could talk or turn to for guidance. I pretty much cried my way through the year.” On a whim, she emailed Ron DelMoro, Hackley’s Lower School Director, toask if Hackley was hiring Lower School teachers. “I thought, maybe I can go back to what I knew!”