Former Diplomat Pompeii Ferrer Plans To Do Mission Work After Retiring As Reston Teacher

RESTON, VA — After 60 years in education, Pompeii Ferrer, known as "Miss Pompeii" by her class of 4-year-olds at Robert E. Simon Jr. Children's Center, plans to retire.

Leila Kaszubunski, the preschool's director, told Patch that Ferrer is a very creative teacher, who loves music and has fun dancing with her students and helping them learn how to write the letters of their names.

"Especially back when she started in 2004, one of the main focuses was talking about multiculturalism in education," Kaszubunski said. "The fact that she is not only from a different country, but she's also lived in several different countries. She has a very wide variety of multicultural experiences to share with the children."

Having taught students in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, California, New Jersey, and Virginia, Ferrer says that 4-year-olds across the globe aren't that different.

"Psychologically speaking, they are the same," she said. "When I was with the Department of Foreign Affairs, I was asked by to observe UNESCO activities in Tokyo, in Japan. I observed schools there. It's the same thing. Although they have a different culture, it's the same thing. The psychology is universal."

At 83, Ferrer has had a long, full life and had many careers before coming to the Robert E. Simon Children's Center in Reston.

Growing up in The Philippines, Ferrer earned a bachelor's degree at Far Eastern University and a master's in school administration from Ateneo de Manilla University.

After finishing her education, Ferrer became a diplomat with the Department of Foreign Affairs, where she was assigned to Saudi Arabia for eight years followed by six years in Bahrain.

It was while Ferrer was working as a diplomat in Saudi Arabia that she helped launch the first Philippine School abroad.

"It opened at first for the children of the diplomats at the Philippine Embassy," she said. "Then, the other embassies came to us to enroll their children and we opened it only to diplomats there in Saudi Arabia and Filipinos."

Once Ferrer's eight-year assignment in Saudi Arabia was up, she was recalled to The Philippines and the school was given to the community.

In 1994, Ferrer was reassigned to Bahrain, where she and 27 other Filipinos established the Philippine School in Bahrain and the Philippine School Association to oversee it.

Unlike the Philippine School in Saudi Arabia, all the students at the Bahrain school are Filipino. Currently, the school serves 984 students, with classes ranging from kindergarten through high school.

Even though Ferrer would retire from the foreign service and move to the United States in 1999, she still maintains a link to the school in Bahrain, serving as a member of its board of directors.

With stops in California and New Jersey, Ferrer followed a friend's advice and moved to Virginia.

"I applied for a teaching position at New Vista School. It is not here anymore because the the owner died," she said. "I was the director of the school when the owner passed away."

After the New Vista School closed, Ferrer began teaching at a school in Falls Church and was an English as a second language instructor with Fairfax County Public Schools for 14 years.

Although Ferrer has said that 2024 will be her final year at the Robert E. Simon Jr. Children's Center, she has no plans to slow down.

In addition to singing in the choir at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Herndon, she's a Handmaid of the Lord in the Couples for Christ group. In that role, she hopes to do mission work in The Philippines.

"I want to do this because we have scholars of the poorest of the poor," Ferrer said. "I know I'm poor, but there are people who are poorer, much poorer than us. That's what we are helping right now. We have more than 200 students now in the Philippines that we are helping."