SAN ANTONIO – Kiara Ruiz is quiet and pretty shy, but she said after transferring to Harlandale ISD’s Frank Tejeda Academy her senior year, she came out of her shell.
“I thought it was really scary, because I didn’t know anybody,” Ruiz said. “But eventually, you know, I get to talk to more people, and I feel like I’m better at talking to people now, because I came here.”
She said it’s why she loves doing her hair and makeup that makes her stand out.
“I’m more of an introverted person, so I’d rather stick out more,” Ruiz said. “So people come up to me, so I have to go up to them.”
Introverted but at the top of her class, she scored in the top percentile in math.
“I’ve been here for 11 years, and, you know, every year we give our kids the TSC, and she blew the TSC off the charts,” Ruiz counselor Bubba Adams at Frank Tejeda Academy said. “I mean, her scores were the highest I’d ever seen at the school. And one of the highest I’d seen in my 20 years of counseling.”
Her test scores and grades earned her a full ride to Texas A&M University San Antonio.
“She is actually going to be the second Frank Tejeda student to start off at a four-year college,” Adams said. “And we have a lot of students every year that start off at a community college.”
She plans on majoring in psychology, where she hopes to become a math teacher and then eventually get her master’s degree in psychology.
“She’s the epitome of someone who loves and cares for people,” Adams said. “So choosing a field like teaching or, neural psychology. Psychology, seems really right up her alley.”