As the month of September began confusion arose regarding the status of Assistant Principal (AP) and Associated Student Body (ASB) advisor Patricia Perez. On Sept. 4, Perez released an email to the Bonita Vista High (BVH) admin team announcing her official resignation from her roles as an AP and ASB advisor.
The greater majority of the student population had no knowledge of her resignation until much later. As the news spread around campus, waves of shock rippled through the BVH community. Rumors regarding her departure dispersed throughout the school. Attendance Coordinator and math teacher Christina Ada, Financial Advisor Leona Jazmine and the Associated Student Body (ASB) cabinet worked tirelessly to maintain ASB plans during Homecoming week.
“This past week with Homecoming, I think it really clicked for a lot of the cabinet that ASB is a lot of work during this time of year. It requires everyone to be super on top of their responsibilities.”
According to both BVH principal Lee Romero and ASB secretary and junior Ava Nixon, it was known that Perez returned to work after a medical leave to fill the role that Christopher Alvarez, the previous ASB advisor, left open.
“We [the ASB and the school’s admin team] knew that when [Perez] came in for Alvarez, she was coming off a year of medical absence. She knew that her role was going to be temporary and her time at Bonita was going to be limited,” Nixon said.
As Perez resigned without much warning to the majority of the student and staff population. It came as a surprise but not a shock to the teachers of BVH, as many were aware of her health issues. Despite the overall student body being kept in the dark, Perez’s ASB students saw warning signs as the time for her resignation approached.
“[Perez] had been in and out leading up to the week of her resignation, so it was like she had already left, but she was still officially in the position,” ASB president and senior Alexis Acosta said.
BVH staff had little knowledge of Perez’s thoughts on resigning prior to her official departure. Perez’s official email was the general staff’s first notification. Due to the temporary nature of her presence on campus, her resignation wasn’t an entire shock to most staff.
This wasn’t the case for Romero, Perez’s departure was expected and supported. He had known that she was considering leaving for a while prior to the ASB officers being informed and the email being sent out to the BVH staff. Romero explains his support for Perez’s decision to leave.
“She was dealing with some health issues before, [so] she did us the favor of taking on this job. With the position being so taxing, the health issues started catching up with her, so she had to resign and I supported it,” Romero said.
Romero further explained that Perez’s departure was handled well by the faculty and ASB cabinet. In her absence there were two positions left to fill, an AP position as well as ASB advisor position which both require an administrative credential. Romero explains that Ada does not have proper credentials to fill a permanent position, despite this he believes that Ada was the perfect person to temporarily fill this role.
“I earnestly believe that Ada is the only person in this entire world that could take over ASB with a completely smooth transition; she knows everything about this community and everyone in it. When she says I need people to help me with this, everybody jumps to help,” Romero said.
With this transition occurring during Homecoming week, stress was not only placed on Ada and other staff members, but on the ASB officers and cabinet members. Regardless of this huge shift of responsibility, ASB continued to run smoothly from the inside and out. Both Romero and Acosta agreed that ASB experienced little challenges associated with Perez leaving.
“I [have] to revert credit back to this amazing ASB team that is run by four brilliant women. This group is working harder than they ever have and they’re committed to make sure all the events happen just as planned,” Romero said.
Acosta was concerned at first, since Perez’s withdrawal coincided with one of the busiest times of the year for not only ASB but the school as a whole. With lunch activities, spirit day, multiple assemblies, a football game and the dance itself, the ASB was flooded with tasks. Alongside these additional activities that the ASB needed to plan, coordinate and execute, ASB still had their regular tasks to attend to.
Nixon shared similar concerns but also voiced her uncertainty about how the ASB cabinet would react to Perez’s absence. Because ASB’s current members consist primarily of new students this year, many of them had never experienced ASB without Perez there.
“Perez was really the only advisor and the way she ran things was the only way [the cabinet] knew. I know that some of them were definitely worried about not having her to guide them, but I think that everyone is relatively happy with how we’ve been able to carry ourselves with Ada’s help,” Nixon said.
The officers all agreed that this change has caused each of them to take on more than is typically required even for returning students. They extensively mentioned that the workload and commitment for ASB became increasingly hectic throughout this time. ASB was required to be extremely productive and organized.
“Our ASB students dealt with Mrs. Perez’s resignation really well, especially under the circumstances with Homecoming week approaching fast. Everything [was] really crazy with the extensive work days and I think they handled it really well,” Acosta said.
The current ASB cabinet and officers are used to Perez’s methods of running the program but are now becoming accustomed to Ada’s methods. Nixon further shares her concerns in regards to how the transition from Perez to Ms. Ada will be.
“Everybody runs ASB a little bit differently with the experience they’ve had. Perez ran ASB in a particular way and we don’t know how well the cabinet will adapt to a new advisor,” Nixon said.
Acosta further explains her main concerns are regarding the transition to a new ASB advisor, once they find a replacement for Ada. For the most part her concerns are associated with the varying managerial style each new advisor takes on.
“You never know how the advisor is going to run things. They’re going to be completely new to the school and there’s no guarantee that they will go easy on us during the transition period,” Acosta said. “There’s just a lot of variables up in the air when it comes to something of great importance like that.”
