ROGERS — Volunteer James Sandoval moves down the hallways of Elmwood Middle School with rock star swagger.
Teachers smile and nod as he points them out and waves.
“What’s up James?” a student calls.
At A Glance
James Sandoval
James Sandoval graduated from Rogers High School in 2006, according to school records. He began volunteering at Oakdale in the fall of 2006, moving to Elmwood Middle School in 2011.
Source: Staff Report
“How you doing?” he calls back with a thumbs-up.
He wears a name badge and carries a school-issued radio, but Sandoval isn’t a teacher or a custodian. He isn’t paid to walk the hallways all day to check for boys loitering in the bathrooms or to watch as each paper falls from the copy machine before he taps them into order and delivers them to teachers. Nobody makes him show up every morning and patrol the commons for kids sneaking cellphones or running in the hallway.
It’s just what he does, and he counts it a privilege.
“I like being here. It keeps me busy,” Sandoval said.
The 25-year-old Sandoval has volunteered in Rogers schools since he graduated from Rogers High School in 2006.
He takes his mother to work at 5:30 a.m. He helps pop corn at Tillery Elementary School on Fridays. He shuttles friends with no car from place to place, sometimes racking up $200 in gasoline, said his father Reynaldo Sandoval.
Helping others keeps his son out of trouble, Reynaldo Sandoval said.
“It’s very important to keep busy, to keep busy with something positive,” he said.
His parents hope Sandoval’s volunteer work will one day lead to a job.
He receives disability payments, but no one, including James, could detail any physical or developmental diagnosis outside of diabetes and a thyroid condition. He attended special education classes, beginning in middle school.
People Person
The family moved to Northwest Arkansas from the Los Angeles area when James Sandoval was 7. Everyone spoke Spanish in his old neighborhood, so he learned English in Arkansas. He attended special education classes at Elmwood Middle School.
Gayle Pullease, a special education teacher’s aide at Elmwood, remembers Sandoval as a hardworking and kind student.
“I’m proud he’s come back to Elmwood and helping out like he is,” Pullease said.
Bruce Norwood, assistant principal, said in addition to being helpful, Sandoval brightens anyone’s day.
“If you’re not having a good day, speak with James, and you’ll walk away having a good day for at least a minute,” Norwood said.
Those who have worked with Sandoval know him for his smile, his memory for people and what they need, and his willingness to help.
“The most unique thing about James is he’s just James,” said James Goodwin, retired principal at Oakdale Middle School, where Sandoval first volunteered.
Reynaldo Sandoval is amazed by his son’s ability to meet people. When James Sandoval got a new phone, it was filled with 500 contacts in less than two years, his father said.
No Job Too Small
James Sandoval is a familiar face wherever there is soccer. He helps run the Metapan team, named for his father’s hometown of Metapan City in El Salvador. James Sandoval calls the players and fills holes in the roster at the start of the season. He never forgets someone he has seen play, Reynaldo Sandoval said.
Sandoval started as a school volunteer at Oakdale. Sandoval said he felt depressed after he graduated from high school. He volunteered with soccer, but when the season was over there was nothing to do.
He asked Goodwin if he could help and was given a desk, a portable radio and whatever job came up. Sandoval sharpened two No. 2 pencils for every child to use during standardized tests. School officials began to ask Sandoval to translate when parents called with concerns; soon parents called and asked for him. He steered wheelchair-bound students around the school and read to special education classes, like those he attended in middle school.
No mental or physical challenge stops Sandoval, Goodwin said.
“He’s determined that everyone is going to have a fair shake at everything,” Goodwin said.
After Goodwin retired, Sandoval moved to Elmwood, where he attended school.
Students call him “the Watchdog,” but to employees, Sandoval is their volunteer.
Sandoval keeps an orderly line at lunch, no pushing, no cutting, said seventh-grader Tyler Thornhill.
“He’s like our bodyguard,” Tyler said.
Oswaldo Anguiano, a sixth-grade Oakdale student, met Sandoval on the soccer field while their fathers’ teams played. They talk, Oswaldo said.
“He’s a really cool guy,” he said.
When he isn’t volunteering at school, Sandoval is on the soccer fields, said Cesar Aguilar, assistant program director at the Rogers Activity Center. Aguilar leads soccer programs at the center and met Sandoval and his father through soccer in the mid-90s.
“He’s our team spirit. He’s such an all-good guy and he makes everybody want to be that way too.”
Jacob Nilsson
Soccer coach
“He’s a pure, good person,” Aguilar said.
If a team needs a goalkeeper, Sandoval finds one. He brings in sponsorships and keeps track of the paperwork necessary to enter tournaments. The requests are always for someone else, Aguilar said.
“You can’t say no to him,” said coach Jacob Nilsson.
Sandoval loaded up players who didn’t have a ride and chauffeured them to practice and games when Nilsson coached the Northwest Arkansas Lightning Juniors, an 18 and under team, in the fall of 2011. His dedication is part of the reason some of those players got scholarships, Nilsson said. Although technically an assistant coach, Sandoval was unanimously voted most valuable player.
“He’s our team spirit,” Nilsson said. “He’s such an all-good guy and he makes everybody want to be that way too.”