Jazmin Betancourt, Lupe Lopez, Cecilia Santillan and Estefana Medina started their student lives as strangers.
But on Monday, they were close friends, having shared the rigors of a 30-week course to learn or perfect their English-speaking and -writing skills.
And after a lunchtime ceremony at a McDonald’s restaurant, they were among 10 graduates of “English Under the Arches,” a program that teaches the fast-food giant’s employees the English they need to communicate effectively and confidently with customers and staff.
The four women are managers at different McDonald’s in Clark County, among the 17 restaurants owned by Val and Matt Hadwin.
The students finished their last class before Monday’s ceremony at 2814 N.E. Andresen Road. Then, with the strains of “Pomp and Circumstance” playing over loudspeakers, the students paraded through the restaurant doors and marched down the seating area aisles to the front, where the Hadwins presented each with a certificate of completion. Vancouver Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle also greeted them in the reception line.
Afterward, Betancourt, Lopez, Santillan and Medina reflected on the importance of the achievement.
“I met nice people,” said Betancourt, a manager at the Stockford Village restaurant. “So now I know more managers at other stores.”
Santillan, a manager at the Salmon Creek restaurant, said the class load was challenging. The course included three-times-a-week online sessions and an in-person class held every six weeks at the Hadwins’ corporate office, taught by a community college instructor.
“But there was a lot of motivation for me, because I’m learning a lot and I can speak more fluent with the customers,” she said. “And all the time when I wake up in the morning, I think of my kids. And I say thank you to the company — Matt and Val, the owners. Because they give us the opportunity to learn to be better and to give you a better life for our families. Thank you for this opportunity. It is really important.”
It was so important for Medina that she was accompanied by her 14-year-old son, Orlando Pelegrin, a student at nearby Fort Vancouver High School.
“I feel more better because I can have more conversations with my son,” said Medina, a manager at the Sifton restaurant. “With my employer, too. Because I am a shift manager. So I am speaking more better.”
Pelegrin, sitting next to his mother, said, “I’m very happy for her. I’m excited for her. She understands how to speak English, but now she can speak a lot more.”
McDonald’s, based in Oakbrook, Ill., launched English Under the Arches in 2007. In the time it has been offered at restaurants in Oregon and Southwest Washington, more than 100 people have graduated, company spokeswoman Lindsay Rainey said. The nationwide retention rate of students after one year is 88 percent; after three years, it’s 78 percent. The class that graduated Monday had one student drop out.
While the corporatewide English-speaking program was launched about a decade ago, the company chose to take the $150 million it reaped from Trump administration tax cuts and plow it into the program, said Ian Tolleson, a government relations manager.
In addition to improving English language skills, an “Archways to Opportunity” program launched in 2015 offers support to earn a high school diploma, work toward a college degree and get help making education and career plans with the help of advisers. Some of the benefits are extended to immediate family of eligible employees at participating restaurants.
Val and Matt Hadwin — like all individual franchise owners who participate in “Under the Arches” — select managers and manager trainees to participate in the program, pay their tuition and provide paid work time for the employees to attend classes while at work.
“They are the ones who wanted to do it,” said Val Hadwin, who choreographed the graduation march, complete with mortarboards and a tassel-moving ceremony. “We have this available for them. They really had an interest in being better.”
