RRHS’s Dori Ko may be a politician someday

Meet Dori Ko, a Rio Rancho High School senior who is literally going places.

And she’s been some places, too: Born in South Korea and living in the City of Vision since she was 2, she was shuttled back and forth to Grants for the first three years of elementary school. Her mother, Jennifer Ko, a Grants native, was her kindergarten teacher at Mt. Taylor Elementary, and that was the best route for her then.

“We’d wake up at 4 in the morning,” she recalled. Her mother now teaches at Rio Rancho Elementary.

“I’m from Grants so I got a job there when Dori was 2, upon returning from Korea,” Jennifer Ko explained. “Our children commuted with me for three years: That was Dori’s pre-K, kindergarten and first grade years. She has been at RRPS since second grade, except for a semester in Korea in middle school. She and her dad, Gilyoung Ko, went back just for her to have that experience and spend some time with our Korean family.”

As far as “going places” in the future, Dori’s been working at Dion’s to save money for an adventure in Europe this summer, planning to visit Germany and Italy.

“I’ve met a lot of foreign exchange students in my time here at Rio Rancho,” she said, “and I’ve become real close with a lot of them, (mostly) from Germany and Italy.”

Ko, the president of the RRHS student body, recently ended a stint as president of the New Mexico Association of Student Councils, a first for an RRPS student.

She was introduced to the school board at its Feb. 26 meeting, where she told them she would someday like to enter the field of politics, maybe as a school board member.

When she was much younger, she thought about being a chef, as a grandmother was a baker.

Set your sights higher, advised board member Jessica Tyler, who said she was once a student body president at West Mesa High School.

Ko, of course, wouldn’t be the first RRHS alum on the board: Board President Amanda Galbraith graduated from RRHS in 2000, and former board member Ryan Parra is a 2007 graduate.

Ko carries a 3.8 grade-point average. Nothing she accomplishes will surprise RRHS Activities Director Christopher Salas.

“Dori Ko has been an exceptional leader who exemplifies the resilience of the class of 2024. She came to campus as a sophomore and immediately poured herself into all the things that high school had to offer,” Salas said. “Her service to schools around the state as NMASC president left a profound impact on student leaders everywhere. Dori encouraged schools to ‘connect, not like puzzle pieces with predetermined outcomes, but like LEGOS with infinite possibilities and she stuck with that message through her year of service.”

Ko also “spearheaded the return of an old traditional ‘exchange day’ (in 2023), where students from neighboring student councils changed campus sites for a day to share ideas,” Salas added. “We learned a great deal from Cleveland and Cibola during this process and it has made RRHS a better campus a result.”

Added longtime Rio Rancho Public Schools teacher and administrator Patricia Di Vasto, “I volunteer with RRHS Associated Students and met Dori last school year during the state conference. She is one of the most humble, brilliant, caring and kind students I have ever met. She is a leader in every sense of the word. Everyone respects her.

“Coming from this Italian, I can say her pizza dough twirling skills are amazing,” Di Vasto quipped. “Young children are mesmerized watching her perform her craft. Dori will continue to go far in the world.”

The best advice she received, which could lead to her future, was hearing a former teacher suggest, “If you want to find something you’re passionate about, find what makes you angry.”

“OK, well, I’m not an easily angered person, but something that makes me angry is injustices in the law, so I started heading down that path of law.”

She has since veered, pondering politics.

“I’d like to make a change locally – that’s where you can make the biggest impact.”

Asked, had she been a school board member now, what she would advocate for, Ko replied, “I would say the schedule at the school.

“I know they’re working on it,” she continued, referring to later start times for secondary students, “for better sleeping habits.

“Maybe looking at year-long school, which I predict they may be looking at, a yera0-round schedule,” she said. “Even in school, growing up, we would write essays, arguing whether we should go year long. You’re off the same amount of days; it’s better for your brain to remember what happened last year, (and) it’s better for connections between students and teachers. I just thing year-round school would be beneficial.”

She’s not in the top 10 nor the top 25; “I wish I would have taken, like AP (advanced placement) classes, that I didn’t think to take at the time – I am academically focused – but I think my greater focus is student council; I think it teaches great skills.”

Although New Mexico State and Colorado State are possibilities for her in the 2024-25 school year, Ko has applied elsewhere, too: Vanderbilt and the University of Virginia.

She provided advice for the incoming class of 2028: “Challenge yourself.

“My biggest regret my freshman year is that I didn’t challenge myself enough; I didn’t take APs, and this year I didn’t take enough APs,” she said. “By senior year,m you start to get nbored and I think that’s the worst thing that can happen in education: if you start to get bored. … You need to work hard and think about what you want to do ni the future.” .

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