When Berta Weyenberg came to Louisville from Cuba in 1996 through the United States lottery visa program, she found a community ready and willing to help her family find their footing in a foreign land.
Not even a year later in 1997, Weyenberg joined the Jefferson County Public Schools ESL Department and made it her mission to ensure Louisville and JCPS remain a welcoming place for all, no matter where you come from or what language you speak.
Now, after 27 years and immeasurable impact made, Weyenberg will retire on July 1.
“When I first came to Louisville, not knowing the language, with two little kids who went to JCPS, I received all of that support from the community,” Weyenberg said. “So the natural response was to give back and somehow try to repay what the community gave to us. I would need 27 more years to pay forward what the U.S. and JCPS have given me.”
Weyenberg has enjoyed a front row seat to the incredible growth of multilingual learners in Louisville. In 1997, when she started at JCPS as a Bilingual Associate Instructor (BAI) at Whitney Young Elementary School, JCPS had fewer than 2,000 multilingual learners (MLs).
The district now has more than 20,000 MLs.
In 2009, Weyenberg moved to the district’s central office as a data coordinator in the ESL Department—now known as the Office of Multilingual Learners (OML). She’s been in that role for the last 16 years, stationed at the OML Welcome Center (formerly known as the intake center) where families of a non-English language background register and get connected to resources when they first enter JCPS.
Dr. Jill Handley, assistant superintendent for multilingual learners, called Weyenberg a “pillar” of OML and the community who puts students at the forefront of every decision she makes.
“There’s so many words to describe Berta—legend is definitely one of them for all the work she’s put in to make the Office of Multilingual Learners what it is to both JCPS and to our community,” Handley said. “The second word that comes to mind is joy. I can’t think of a person who encounters her who doesn’t walk away feeling proud of the work they’re doing and the work she’s doing as well.”
Weyenberg has long been a community connector, helping forge relationships among schools and Louisvillians who haven’t always had strong connection points to JCPS, said Gwen Snow, principal of the district’s Newcomer Academy.
In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic threw the world—and JCPS—into turmoil, Weyenberg began hosting an hour-long radio show every Saturday in Spanish to help bring updates to the city’s Hispanic community. She did that for a year, also helping coordinate food deliveries for families who would call into the radio show seeking help as they battled illness.
“She is a voice for the community,” Snow said. “She is one of the people who got me through COVID with her radio updates. It was helpful for parents and for me as a principal, and I looked forward to those Saturday mornings with Berta.”
2020 also marked the year Weyenberg began setting up shop periodically at Sweet Havana, a Cuban restaurant off Fern Valley Road in an area of Louisville with the city’s largest international population, she said.
On Wednesday, nestled into one of Sweet Havana’s booths with a cafecito, fresh pastry, and her laptop, Weyenberg prepared to meet with a family who needed assistance submitting an application for JCPS early childhood services.
“It’s become kind of an unofficial satellite office,” Weyenberg said of the restaurant. “We can sit here and do an application for employment, help with a student application or a transfer request. It’s just a welcoming space where we can reach people in a place where they feel comfortable.”
Throughout her career, Weyenberg has spearheaded many initiatives to get JCPS information to non-English speaking populations. In 2009, before she had moved to her district-level role, a major ice storm hit Louisville. The district was struggling to ensure Spanish-speaking families understood school was canceled, she said. Weyenberg contacted Poder radio and started producing clips for the station to play to reach Spanish-speaking JCPS parents. Then, TV stations approached Weyenberg about running school cancellation messaging in Spanish.
About a year later, Weyenberg established the JCPS en Español Facebook page and Twitter (now X) account to provide social media updates in Spanish, where she has continued to provide updates for more than a dozen years.
In retirement, Weyenberg plans to continue sharing uplifting stories highlighting the Hispanic community on her podcast ConBERTAciones, now in its third season. Weyenberg also will continue serving as president of the Cuban American Association of Kentucky (ACAK).
“Sometimes you leave a place, especially a place that you love, and you think, ‘how is it going to continue,” she said. “But I know I’m leaving the Welcome Center in good hands with people who have beautiful ideas on how to continue the mission of the program.”