Sal Soto struggled through high school, making it to graduation with the help of summer classes.
He never thought decades later he’d be back at high school every day as a teacher, helping students like himself.
Soto, 44, is the culinary teacher at Elevate Academy Nampa, one of a handful of career technical education charter schools in the Elevate network statewide.
At Elevate, he has turned his experience as a restaurant owner into more than a culinary program. His classroom is built around relationships, hands-on learning, and the idea that students can learn from their mistakes — lessons Soto says he learned the hard way.
Learning the family business
Soto was born and raised in Caldwell. His parents immigrated from Mexico and worked their way up at major Idaho agribusiness company JR Simplot Co. When he was 12, the Sotos took a risk opening Imelda’s, a TexMex restaurant in Caldwell. His mother, Imelda, used family recipes to create the restaurant’s menu.
“It was a lot of stress on them,” Soto said. “She would be like, ‘Was this a good switch’ from being a boss at Simplot to opening up her own business.”
Soto would do his homework at the restaurant before helping wherever he was needed. He graduated high school and did odd jobs for a few years before being drawn back to the restaurant, which he purchased from his mother in his early 20s.
His mother taught him how to cook.
“I had many fails,” Soto said with a chuckle.
He was nervous taking over the business and trying to prove himself to the customers.
“We got really busy,” he said. “It was stressful. It was like, ‘OK this is a lot on me.'”
The regular customers were the best part, Soto said. The restaurant is near the College of Idaho campus, so basketball, football and volleyball players would come frequently. It began to feel like family.
Cultivating a career change
Soto ran the restaurant for 20 years. When Imelda retired, Soto and his wife questioned what their next step would be. The couple had young daughters, and Soto was missing much of family life.
“I would get there at five in the morning, and sometimes I wouldn’t get home until eight, nine o’clock,” he said.
He sold the business for a better work-life balance. Not long after, his cousin, Esai Longoria, who works at Elevate Caldwell, suggested Soto apply to teach at the new campus in Nampa.
He got the job — and faced a massive learning curve.
“I’ve never taught before, so I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “That first year was a struggle. I just wanted to make sure I did the job right.”
He earned a teaching certificate at the College of Idaho, built a curriculum and worked with other Elevate staff. The first year in the classroom, Soto just taught what he knew, he said. The curriculum and his classroom management style have evolved in the five years since he started. His business experience has helped.
Colton Sweezy, charter administrator at Elevate Nampa, said Soto has a natural connection with students.
“Sal has a fundamental love for cooking and kids,” Sweezy said.
‘You’ve got to fail in order to succeed’
His passion turned into innovation, with Soto blowing away expectations of CTE teachers, Sweezy said. Soto created a teacher lunch program, where culinary students are under pressure to show off what they learned in a particular unit. They recently completed a unit on the five mother sauces, then cooked for teachers as their end-of-unit evaluation.
“Kids get to see a tangible product from the efforts they’ve made instead of filling out a test on sauces,” Sweezy said.
Soto’s program becomes more intensive in 11th and 12th grades, when students spending an hour and a half each day in the culinary classroom.
“It is a tight-knit community of kids that come from a variety of different backgrounds that are committed to taking care of each other, their kitchen and their teacher,” Sweezy said. “It’s rooted in care, commitment and innovation.”
Soto feels like his students understand him as a teacher by the time they’re juniors and seniors. He opens class with a check-in, then they get down to work.
But it’s not always serious. If a student drops a pan, Soto will joke, “Everyone give them a golf clap.”
Messing up is part of the process, Soto tells his students.
“I’ve had some fails,” he said. “I tell my kids you’ve got to fail in order to succeed.”
Sal Soto
Years teaching: 5
Grades taught: 6-12
What’s the best thing students have cooked for you?
They made sushi and that was one subject where I was not familiar with, so I told my students, ‘Hey guys, I don’t know how to make sushi, but we’re going to figure it out.’ The kids killed it, man.
