For Shenelle Ali, walking into MS 137 every morning to teach social studies is “like coming home.” Something about the Ozone Park, Queens, middle school feels familial and comforting, said Ali, and she’s not alone. She’s one of nine current faculty members — seven teachers and two paraprofessionals — who graduated from the school.

“I chose to come back because of that sense of community,” said Ali, who enthusiastically applied for an opening at MS 137 and chose it over another offer at a different school.

What makes MS 137 so special that former students want to return as educators? Vishal Ramnanan, an algebra teacher and alumnus, agreed with Ali that it’s the culture.

“The way people treat you and welcome you, the way everyone works together — it’s a safe environment,” said Ramnanan. In particular, he remembers the social studies class he took in 7th grade with his now-colleague, Andrea Sitaram, a teacher with 21 years of experience. “She knew how to connect with our culture,” Ramnanan said. The two, like many of the school’s students and faculty members, share a Caribbean cultural background. Learning about connections between India and countries like Guyana or Trinidad made Ramnanan an eager student, raising his hand to answer questions more frequently than he had in elementary school.

Now, Ramnanan and Sitaram are colleagues, planning events like senior breakfasts and field days. “Knowing that she was my teacher, and now I’m a teacher and she has trust in me — it feels amazing,” said Ramnanan.

The kind of mentorship that Sitaram offers her former student is a crucial part of what makes MS 137 exceptional for the 201 UFT members on staff, Chapter Leader Vinny Corletta said.

“Some people have been teaching here since the bricks were put in 22 years ago,” said Corletta. Such “long-term relationships” contribute to a strong community that helps newer educators grow and build relationships with students and families, he said. “The students feel safe, seen and heard, and so do the teachers,” said Corletta.

Rafeena Muntaz, a 6th-grade math teacher and another MS 137 alumna, said that feeling of safety is crucial at the middle school level.

“Middle school was my roughest time,” said Muntaz. She said she struggled with mental health and lacked confidence during the “awkward” middle school years. She credited her teachers with helping her through.

“A lot of the advice [I received] is what I give to my students,” said Muntaz, who makes time to listen when students vent and assures them that they’ll “get through and be a better person for it.”

Many staff alumni at MS 137, including Breanna Kowlassar, cite the school’s diversity, not only in its demographics but also as one of its core values, as part of what drew them back. Kowlassar said before she was a student there, she’d never attended a school where her “culture was represented.”

“I had friends who looked like me and teachers I could connect to,” she said of her time as an MS 137 student. Now a 6th-grade English teacher, she says her background allows her to “instantly bond” with students, many of whom also count the Caribbean as part of their heritage and live in the neighborhood where Kowlassar also grew up.

“The first day of school I tell them, ‘I was a student here, I’m from Guyana, and I speak Creole,’” she said. “They light up.”